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'Bhe Siege in Peking 



Dr. Martin's "Compendium of Information" 

j^ r;YCLE OF pATHAY 

or 
CKina, South and North 

•WITH PERSONAL REMINISCENCES BY 

W. A. P. MARTIN. D.D.. LL.D. 

President of the Imperial University of Peking 

With Seventy Illustrations, Map and Index, 8vo, 
Decorated Cloth, $2.00 



"A scholarly epitome of the life and thought of the Chi- 
nese nation for upwards of four thousand years." — Phila- 
delphia Times. 

"Will add even to the specialists knowledge of Chinese 
character. A storehouse of facts and personal reminiscen- 
ces." — San Francisco Chronicle. 

"Nowhere can be found a more luminous sketch of Chi- 
nese history during the last four thousand years . . . With 
the actual political and social condition of the country." — 
New York Sun. 

"Earnestly to be commended for its liberality of view, 
wealth of information and clear knowledge." — Boston 
Beacon. 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

New York : 158 Fifth Ave. Chicago : 6j Washington St. 
Toronto : 154 Yonge St. 




DE. MARTIN IN SIEGE COSTCME, AS HE AKRIVEI 
NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 23RD, 1900. 



H6e 
siege: in PEKING 

CKinaL AgOLinst the World 



IBy an E,ye Witness 

W. A. P. MARTIN, D.D., LL.D. 

President of tKe Chinese Imperia-l Univer- 
sity; Author of Cycle of Ca.tha.y, Etc. 




NewYork ChicaLgo Toronto 

Fleming H. R^evell Compatny 

1900 



82^58 



Library of Congreae 

Two Copies RECfivi^o 
DEC 1 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY 
Oelivvred to 

ORDER OIVISION 
DEC 10I90Q 



2)577/ 



Copyright, 1900 

by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



THE CAXTON PRESS 
NEW YORK. 



TO 

THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE MEN ' 

WHO DIED IN DEFENCE OF THE LEGATIONS 

DURING THE SIEGE 

AND OF 

THOSE WHO FELL IN THE RESCUE 

THIS VOLUME IS 

REVERENTLY INSCRIBED 



THE AUTHOR TO THE READER 

When I left China only a little over a month 
ago I had no intention of making a book. My 
friends, however, insist that I should put the ac- 
count of my experiences during the siege into a 
permanent form. To me it is painful, Infandum 
renovare dolorem. But the public, more imperi- 
ous than the Queen of Carthage, must be obeyed. 

On reaching New York in the actual costume 
which I wore during the siege, I called a boy to 
carry my packages, my son Newell having gone 
to the wrong station to meet me. As I was 
carrying a gun, the lad remarked : 

" You must have been hunting somewhere ? " 

" Yes," said I, " in Asia, beyond the sea." 

" What kind of game ? " he inquired. 

" Tigers," I replied — I ought to have said 
hysenas. 

He asked no further questions, and I added no 
explanation. 

The gentle reader will find the explanation in 
the following pages. 

7 



8 The Author to the Reader 

I have not had time to compare views with 
any one who has written on the subject, nor even 
to verify my dates, having depended solely on 
my memory, and dictated my text, with .all pos- 
sible rapidity, to a stenographer. 

Trusting the reader will regard favorably the 
following chapters, unkerftpt as they are, and 
that he will lay down the book with the convic- 
tion with which I have written it, namely: that 
in the events now going on in the Far East, great 
issues are at stake for the chfirch, the state, and 
the world. 

Audubon Park, New York, 
November 14, 1900 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Eight Banners of the Allies and the Eight 

OF the Manchus 13 

CHAPTER II 
The Emperor and the Reform Party . . .31 

CHAPTER III 
The Empress Dowager and Her Clique . , 45 

CHAPTER IV 
The Boxers and Their Allies .... 60 

CHAPTER V 
Siege of the Legations in Peking • • • 73 

CHAPTER VI 
Additional Incidents of the Siege . . 108 

CHAPTER VII 
Rescue and Retribution 126 

CHAPTER VIII 
Reconstruction 142 



APPENDIX 171 






wTrf 







MAI' OF THK CITY OF I'KKING 







lliO.M lllK 



K-l^ii. A |ilHl)S-KYK VIKW Ol- TIIK DIS Ti: liliKl) AHKA 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The illustrations marked thus ( * ) are reproduced by the consent of Leslie's 
Weekly, and copyrighted by the Judge Publishing Company, iqoo 

Dr. Martin in Siege Costume . . Frontispiece 

As he arrived iii New York City, October 23, igoo. facing 

PAGE 

Gordon Hall, Tientsin * 13 

The stately building which was the refuge of the Europeans 
during the recent Chinese outbreak, damaged during 
the bombardment. 

The Great Gate of Peking* .... 30 

This tower was burned by the Boxers. 

The President and Foreign Members of the 
Faculty of the Imperial University . . 40 

The second from the right is Professor James, who was 
murdered by the Boxers. 

The Pavilion Entrance to the British Legation * 73 

Where all the Foreign Ministers, with their families, took 
refuge. 

Archway on Ha Ta Men Great Street . . 80 

Scene of Baron Von Ketteler's murder. 

A Portion of the Wall of Peking Held by the 

Allies 84 

Assault of the Relief Column . . . .105 

On Outer Wall of Peking, from a Japanese painting. 



12 Illustrations 



FACING 
PAGE 

A Chinese View of the Murder of the Japanese 
Chancelier no 

Regarded by them as an execution in th» presence of 
Chinese troops and Boxers. 

Li Hung Chang* 122 

China's Greatest Statesman and Peace Commissioner. 

Pei Tang, the French Cathedral* . . . 125 

Held by Roman Catholics until relieved by the Japanese. 

Colonel Liscum * 129 

General Chaffee 129 

The Central Moat, or Canal, in the Forbidden 
City* 139 

The Empress Dowager of China* . . .149 

The Dowager's Palace near Peking* . . . 149 

Edwin H. Conger 164 

United States Minister to China. 

MONSIGNOR FaVIER * 164 

Catholic Bishop of Peking. 

Temple of Heaven in Peking* . . . .170 

Occupied as a camp by the British soldiets. 



MAPS 
From the Pei-Ho to Peking* 

A bird's-eye view of the disturbed area in China. 

Map of the City of Peking* 



THE SIEGE IN PEKING 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EIGHT BANNERS OF THE ALLIES AND THE 
EIGHT OF THE MANCHUS 

Since the spring of this year the eyes of the 
world have been fixed on China as the theatre 
of a tremendous tragedy. Not only do Chinese 
and Tartar, prince and peasant, figure on the 
scene in court and camp, but many nations come 
on the stage in all the pomp of war. It was a 
magnificent spectacle, the gathering at the 
mouth of the Pei Ho of great navies from the 
ends of the earth — the storming of the Taku forts 
for the third time in forty years — the occupation 
of Tien Tsin after four weeks of continual con- 
flict, and the advance on Peking of a combined 
force under the banners of eight leading powers. 

Sixty years ago the British flag appeared alone 
in hostile array, with the result of a treaty made 
at Nanking^ opening five ports to trade, resi- 
13 



14 The Siege in Peking 

dence, and missionary enterpirise. Forty years 
ago the flags of Great Britain and France were 
united in an expedition, which opened the 
capital to the residence of foreign envoys, 
added greatly to the list of open ports, and 
opened up the whole country to the influence 
of Western ideas. Five years ago China was 
humbled in the dust by hitherto despised neigh- 
bors that had grown strong by the adoption of 
those ideas. The banner of the Rising Sun 
now appears along with those of seven great 
powers of the West, once more thundering at 
the gates of the Celestial Empire. 

All the world asks the meaning of this un- 
precedented movement. What motive could be 
so potent as to compel those powers to bury 
their political animosities and to unite in one 
expedition? The answer is in one word. Hu- 
manity. Humanity has been outraged, and 
every nation of the earth either sends a con- 
tingent to avenge the wrong or sympathizes 
with those that send. Had America, Austria, 
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and 
Russia sought for a classic motto to inscribe on 
their banners, they could hardly find a more 
fitting expression of the feeling that led them 
to merge their several aims and rival creeds in 



The Eight Banners 15 

one common purpose than the famous line of 
Terence, " Homo sum et nihil htimani a me alienum 
puto," — I am a man, and nothing human is 
foreign to me. 

Within the walls of Peking are cooped up the 
ministers of eleven nations (those above-named 
with the addition of Holland, Belgium, and 
Spain) along with their people to the number 
of a thousand men, women, and children, and 
menaced with the horrors of an indiscriminate 
slaughter. The besiegers were not, as they 
have been represented by Chinese diplomacy, a 
howling mob that had overpowered the imperial 
government, but an organized army under the 
orders of the government. Documentary evi- 
dence will be adduced in the sequel, amply suf- 
ficient to prove the complicity of the Chinese (I 
ought to say Manchu) Government. By mak- 
ing war on all who hold to principles of human 
progress, it has placed itself beyond the pale of 
civilization, and forfeited the respectable posi- 
tion which it formerly occupied among the na- 
tions of the earth. 

If history be ransacked in quest of a parallel for 
the siege of the legations, it will not be found in 
Mafeking or Ladysmith, for Christian was there 
pitted against Christian. They had only to lay 



l6 The Siege in Peking 

down their arms to insure the best of treatment. 
To find something akin in its savage barbarity 
you must go back to Lucknow, where a mixed 
muhitude shut up in the Residency were hold- 
ing out against fearful odds in expectation of 
relief by Havelock's Highlanders, resolved to 
perish of starvation rather than surrender, for 
the fate of Cawnpore stared them in the face. 

It adds point to this parallel to remember that 
the Tartar rulers of China are cousin german to 
the Great Mogul who headed the Sepoy Mutiny. 

It was some excuse for the King of Delhi that 
he was seeking to regain his throne. No such 
apology can be offered for the Empress Dowager 
of China. She has made war not without prov- 
ocation, but wholly unjustifiable, on all nations 
of the civilized world. Allying herself with the 
powers of darkness, she entered into a diabohcal 
conspiracy, and sanctioned unheard-of atrocities 
in order to keep her people in ignorance and to 
shield her family from the competition of su- 
perior Hght and knowledge. It is one more ex- 
hibition of the conflict of Ahriman and Ormuz, 
the eternal war between the spirit of darkness 
and the God of light. 

To understand the causes of this complicated 
struggle, and to forecast its outcome, it may not 



The Eight Banners 17 

be amiss to give separate attention to some of 
the parties to the conflict, especially to those that 
emerge from the dark cloud that rests on the Far 
East — the Emperor and party of progress; the 
Empress Dowager, and the reactionaries, the 
Boxers, and their associates. Three motives 
have combined to bring about this astounding 
upheaval : Political jealousy, religious antagon- 
ism, and industrial competition. The first is ex- 
emplified in the action of the Tartars, who, being 
an alien race, have always shown themselves 
suspicious of everything which tends to augment 
the prestige of foreigners within their territory. 
The second, if a fetish superstition may be dig- 
nified by the name of religion, may be seen in the 
obscure origin of this Boxer propaganda. The 
third is shown in the progress of that secret so- 
ciety when, transformed into a political party, it 
destroyed the products of foreign machinery be- 
cause they interfered with the slow-going meth- 
ods of an ignorant people. If the reader be 
impatient for the harrowing incidents of the 
siege, he may skip a few of the ensuing chapters ; 
but there is reason to fear that he will not find 
the situation by any means as lucid as it might 
otherwise be made. 
(i Curiously enough, the Tartars of Peking, like 



l8 The Siege in Peking 

the Allied Powers, are ranged under eight ban- 
ners. From the beginning of their dynasty they 
have been known to the Chinese as Pachi — the 
eight banners — ever since they passed the great 
wall and marched on Peking two hundred and 
fifty-six years ago; nor is the number of their 
tribal divisions the only point of resemblance 
worthy of notice. The errand on which they 
first appeared before the gates of Peking was not 
unlike that of our eight nationalities, viz, : " Res- 
cue or Vengeance." 

In 1644 the city was invested by a horde of 
rebels led by a bloodthirsty wretch named Li 
Chuang. The Emperor, a Chinese of the House 
of Ming, knowing that resistance was hopeless, 
hanged himself on a hill overlooking his capital, 
after stabbing his daughter to the heart as a last 
proof of paternal affection. (How many fathers 
were prepared to give the same proof of affection 
in the extremity of our recent siege !) 

Wu San Kwei, a general in command on the 
frontier of Manchuria, hearing the fate of his 
master — learning, too, that his own family had 
fallen into the hands of the rebel chief — called on 
the Manchus to aid him in the expulsion of the 
usurper and the punishment of his crime. On 
the approach of the Tartars the rebels fled, but 



The Eight Banners 19 

the Tartars, on being paid off, refused to retire. 
It was the old story of the ass that begged a 
primitive man to mount his back and drive a 
horned stag away from his pasture-field when, 
to his surprise, he found himself the slave of his 
ally. In this case the Tartar tribes were in the 
saddle. Why should they dismount simply be- 
cause the Chinese requested them to do so ? 

The tables are now turned. It is the Tartars 
who are chased away from the pasture-field. 
Foreign powers are in the saddle. Will the 
eight Powers whose banners now wave over the 
ruins of Peking be more easily satisfied? Will 
they withdraw at a sign from Li Hung Chang, 
and leave their work unfinished? In spite of 
diplomatic assurances to the contrary, similar 
conditions are sure to produce similar results. 
Some at least of the eight banners will be slow 
to abdicate their commanding position. They 
have put curb and bit in the mouth of the Chinese 
donkey, and, judging from present appearances, 
they are not unlikely to persist in riding the 
noble beast. 

This and other questions as to right and policy 
meet us on the threshold, but we are compelled 
to postpone their discussion while we ask the 
reader to follow the eight banners of the Man- 



20 The Siege in Peking 

chus in their occupation of China. Not only is 
such retrospect essential to the comprehension 
of recent events, for more than one lesson which 
might be useful to our statesmen is to be gleaned 
from the experience of the Manchus. 

The first that suggests itself is the ease with 
which the Chinese may be subdued. The sec- 
ond is like unto it, viz., the facility with which 
they may be governed by a foreign power. 
Patient, industrious, and unwarlike, they were 
made to be ruled by others. As a matter of fact, 
they have actually been under the sway (more or 
less complete) of different hordes of Tartars for 
seven centuries out of the last fifteen. From 386 
to 532 of our era an extensive region in Northern 
China was subjected to the house of Toba. 
From 907 to 1234 the Kin Tartars, or Golden 
horde, whom the Manchus claim as ancestors, 
held possession of the Northern Provinces. They 
were displaced by the Mongols of Genghis and 
Kublai Khan, who extended their power to the 
remotest bounds of the empire, and almost at the 
same time brought India beneath their yoke, 
constituting perhaps the most extended do- 
minion that had ever fallen to the lot of a single 
race. After an interval of one native dynasty 
the Manchus, as we have said, got possession of 



The Eight Banners 21 

the throne, and they have held it from 1644 to 
1900, a date which in all probability marks the 
end of their domination. 

Instances of invasion not ending in conquest 
are too numerous to mention. At the dawn of 
history we find the Chinese, like the Egyptians, 
harassed by Shepherd Kings from the North. 
The great Wall, over fifteen hundred miles in 
length, hugest of th^ works of man, was erected 
to keep them out as early as 240 B.C. When 
completed it was described by a historian as the 
" ruin of one generation, but a bulwark of safe- 
ty to all that were to follow." Would that op- 
timistic author have pronounced such an en- 
comium had he foreseen the many centuries of 
subjection to Tartar sway undergone by his peo- 
ple since that epoch ? 

To overrun portions of China has always been 
an easy task for those fierce nomads, but to re- 
tain their conquest required more than martial 
prowess. " I won the empire on horseback," 
said one of those conquerors to a statesman who 
besought him to encourage the milder arts. 
" Can you govern it on horseback ? " was the 
pregnant question that served for a reply. 

To secure permanence of possession it has al- 
ways been necessary for them to adopt the civ- 



22 The Siege in Peking 

ilization (such as it is) of their Chinese subjects. 
By employing Chinese methods in their admin- 
istration they have in many instances achieved 
complete success. This is the second of the 
important lessons suggested by their history. 

The Manchus have done this more thoroughly 
than any of their predecessors, becoming per- 
haps more Chinese than the Chinese themselves ; 
for, while the Chinese have shown themselves 
accessible to new ideas, the Manchus, having 
espoused the civilization of China, have distinctly 
refused to exchange it for that of the West. Yet, 
despite the shocking reversion to barbarism 
which marks the close of their history, it may be 
safely affirmed that no native dynasty ever gov- 
erned the country with more wisdom. What 
they have been able to do, is it unwise for a 
European power to undertake ? 

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach is reported to have 
said in Parliament that " it would be madness for 
Great Britain to attempt the administration of 
any part of China." 

Has not British administration converted the 
colony of Hong-Kong from a barren rock into 
the richest emporium of the Far East ? Are not 
the Chinese, of all peoples, the easiest to govern, 
and are not the British confessedly the ablest 



The Eight Banners 23 

administrators of foreign dependencies? As to 
the possibility of a foreign power governing 
China, the experiment of the Anglo-French Al- 
liance, which for a short time in i860 governed 
the province of Canton through native authori- 
ties, is highly instructive ; and the experience of 
the Manchus during two and a half centuries 
ought to be conclusive. 

Though but a handful in comparison with 
their present numbers, it took them, only seven 
years to bring all the Eighteen Provinces into 
subjection. Their sway began with a female 
Regent, as it appears not unlikely to terminate 
with a female Regency. The armies of the first 
Regent were conducted, and her Cabinet was 
controlled, by Amawang, a brother of her de- 
ceased husband. Her infant son, on ascending 
the throne in the first year of occupation, re- 
ceived the significant title of Shunchi, "the 
prosperous reign." Prosperous his reign cer- 
tainly was for his people, but his enjoyment of it 
was brief, as he died at the age of twenty-four. 

His son was the illustrious Kang Hi, who 
reigned sixty-one years, or a little more than a 
Chinese cycle, leaving behind him so great a 
reputation for wisdom and goodness that he was 
canonized by the title of " Sheng Tsu Jin " — 



24 The Siege in Peking 

sage an'd benevolent. SucH was his avidity 
for knowledge that, while making himself mas- 
ter of the learning of the Middle Kingdom, he 
reached out after the sciences of the West, re- 
ceiving with honor at his Court the Roman 
Catholic missionaries, who a few years earlier 
had gone to China as pioneers of a higher science 
and a better faith. Not merely did he take les- 
sons in geometry and astronomy ; he appears to 
have been favorably disposed toward Christian- 
ity. Two things, however, inspired him with an 
aversion which he bequeathed to his successors. 
After having expressed an opinion as to the 
identity of Shang Ti, " the supreme ruler," with 
the Christians' God, and again as to the purely 
ceremonial character of ancestral worship, he 
had the mortification to see his views set aside 
by a decree of the Pope condemning the worship 
of ancestors as idolatrous and forbidding, as 
pagan, the use of the name Shang Ti, the God of 
the ancient sages. What was perhaps more try- 
ing to his pride, he learned that, in order to be- 
come a Christian, he must begin by acknowledg- 
ing the supremacy of the Pope. Is it surprising 
that his writings betray a growing alienation 
from the teachings of the missionaries? Those 
teachings are condemned in one of his Sixteen 



The Eight Banners 25 

Maxims, a compend of orthodoxy committed to 
memory by Chinese school-boys. 

His son, Yung Cheng, became, as might be 
expected, a bitter persecutor of the new faith. 
Of Yung Cheng, who reigned thirteen years, 
nothing further needs to be said; though, hke 
Julian the Apostate, in spite of his character as 
a relentless persecutor, perhaps for that very 
reason, he enjoys the reputation of being a 
sovereign of exceptional ability. 

The son of Yung Cheng was Chien Lung, the 
Magnificent. Happy in the possession of a 
submissive empire, this monarch sought to ce- 
ment the ties between sovereign and subject by 
making frequent journeys to ascertain the state 
of his people. On such occasions he usually 
left an autograph poem (for he was no mean 
poet) inscribed on a granite slab to commemo- 
rate the visit. One of these effusions that I 
have seen at a Temple on the western hills may 
be rendered as follows : 

Why have I scaled this misty height, 
Why sought this mountain den ? 
I tread as on enchanted ground, 
UnHke the abode of men. 
Weird voices in the trees I hear, 
Weird visions see in air, 



26 The Siege in Peking 

The whispering pines are living harps 
And fairy hands are there. 
Beneath my feet my realm I see 
As in a map unrolled. 
Above my head a canopy 
Bedecked with clouds of gold. 

When he had wielded the sceptre for a full 
cycle he abdicated, because, as he said, it would 
be unfilial to surpass his grandfather in the dura- 
tion of his reign. Did he not reflect how unfilial 
he had been in allowing himself to live longer 
than his father? 

Kia Ching, the next in order, held the throne 
only half as long, and left an unsavory name 
as a votary of pleasure. 

His son, Taou Kwang, reigned thirty years, 
treading in the footsteps of Kanghi, He it was 
who first attempted to suppress the growing vice 
of opium-smoking. When the loss of revenue 
was employed as an argument to deter him from 
his purpose he exclaimed, with virtuous indig- 
nation, " Heaven forbid that I should derive 
profit from the vices of my subjects." 

This good prince was unfortunate in the agent 
whom he selected to carry out his humane de- 
cree. The Viceroy Lin, haughty and overbear- 
ing, employed unjustifiable measures to obtain 



The Eight Banners 27 

possession of the forbidden drug, giving just 
ground for reprisals on the part of Great Britain. 
To save himself the trouble of capturing the 
opium ships which lay beyond the harbor, he sur- 
rounded the whole foreign quarter at Canton 
with soldiery, and threatened the lives of all 
foreigners, without distinction of nationality, in 
case of refusal to surrender the drug. Sum- 
moned by the Superintendent of Trade to deliver 
up as the only means of escape, the merchants 
handed it over to the Queen's representative to 
be used as a ransom for the lives of the com- 
munity. Her Majesty was accordingly pledged 
to make good their loss. To punish this high- 
handed proceeding, and to exact the promised 
indemnity were the objects of Britain's first war 
with China, not at all to force the Chinese either 
to receive opium or to consume it. 

With antiquated arms, and destitute of dis- 
cipline, the Chinese troops were repeatedly 
vanquished. Had Sir Henry Pottinger pushed 
his campaign to Peking, instead of signing a 
treaty at Nanking, he might have taken posses- 
sion of the whole empire instead of the little 
island of Hong-Kong. The world would then 
have seen once more the spectacle of India and 
China united under the sceptre of a foreign race. 



28 The Siege in Peking 

The shortest reign in the history of the dynasty 
was that of Hien Fung, who, ascending the 
throne in 1850, saw his capital in the power of 
foreigners at the end of a decade, and fled to 
Mongolia to find a grave. One of the wives 
who accompanied his flight was the now famous 
(or infamous) Dowager Empress. 

Her history comprehends the reign of her son, 
Tung Chi, thirteen years, and that of her adopted 
son, Kwang Su, twenty-six years. Both will be 
treated in a subsequent chapter. Suffice to say, 
that under the Manchus, the frequent collisions 
with foreign powers, ranging from local riots up 
to serious wars, are mainly attributable to the 
fact that they are themselves foreigners, having 
got the empire by force and treachery. They 
suspect other nations of a desire to supplant 
them. Commercial ports, as they believe, are 
established for this purpose; religion is propa- 
gated to gain the hearts of the natives ; schools 
and newspapers tend to render the Chinese dis- 
loyal. The privilege of carrying on these enter- 
prises, commercial and missionary, was extorted 
by force, and by force it ought to be revoked. 
This was the advice given by a Cabinet Minister 
to the unfortunate Hien Fung on his accession 
in 1850* 



The Eight Banners 29 

" Let it be your aim," said an old counsellor 
—too old to learn anything new — " let it be your 
aim to re-establish the old restrictions all along 
the coast." 

At the beginning of his reign Hien Fung saw 
his southern capital seized by the Taiping rebels, 
a body of fanatics who professed a sort of mon- 
grel Christianity. Toward its end one of his 
arrogant Viceroys, by summarily executing a 
boat's crew who were sailing under the British 
flag, involved him in war with England and 
France. 

Is it not strange that up to the present time 
the Manchus have failed to learn the futility of 
their attempt to expel the hated foreigners? 
They had been beaten by England, later by Eng- 
land and France together, then by Japan unaided 
by other powers. Is it not astonishing that they 
should still plan a general massacre, which was 
certain to provoke the hostility of all nations? 
Sometimes we have seen a young bull, the mas- 
ter of a grazing herd, resent the intrusion of a 
locomotive on his pasture-grounds. He places 
himself on the track in an attitude of defiance, but 
when the train sweeps by all that remains of him 
is a mangled corpse. Barnum's Jumbo, power- 
ful as he was, perished miserably in making a 



30 The Siege in Peking 

similar attempt. Thus has it happened to the 
Banner men of Manchuria. Swept away by the 
Eight Banners of the great Powers the Manchu 
Government hes prostrate, and appears to be 
crushed beyond a possibihty of reconstruction. 

In treating further of this conflict between 
darkness and hght we must draw a broad dis- 
tinction between the Chinese and their Manchu 
rulers. The former are misguided, the latter 
treacherous and implacable. Among the Man- 
chus, again, it is necessary to distinguish between 
a progressive Emperor and the anti-foreign 
Empress Dowager. The advisers of the former 
in the work of reform were exclusively Chinese. 
The instigators of the latter in her bloody reac- 
tion were chiefly Manchus. 




3 I 



E^ ^ 



^ o 



CHAPTER II 

THE EMPEROR AND THE REFORM PARTY 

In the young Emperor, now in the thirtieth 
year of his age, reposes the only hope for even 
a temporary restoration of the Manchu dynasty. 
With features as deHcate as those of a woman, 
and physical frame deficient in vigor, he pos- 
sesses a mind singularly acute and a heart 
capable of being moved by the wants of his peo- 
ple. He alone among the occupants of the 
Dragon Throne during the present dynasty has 
exhibited a sufficient breadth of comprehension 
and superiority to national prejudice to desire to 
accommodate his government to the new civ- 
ilization of the West. Stripped of power for be- 
ing an ardent patron of progress, he possesses a 
peculiar claim on our sympathy. Nor is he to 
be held in any degree responsible for the out- 
rages that have been perpetrated in his name. 
In fact he is rather to be regarded as himself the 
first victim on a long and sanguinary list. 

His predecessor, Tung Chi, only son of the 
31 



32 The Siege in Peking 

Dowager Empress, died at the age of eighteen 
in 1874. Too young to display independence 
of character, Tung Chi had been governed by his 
mother, not merely during his long minority, but 
she continued to exercise her influence over the 
policy of his government even after her Regency 
had been terminated by a formal proclamation. 

Nothing is so well adapted to perpetuate his 
memory as the manner of his death. In the win- 
ter of that year a transit of Venus was to take 
place. More than a century prior to that date 
Captain Cook had made his notable voyage to 
the South Sea for the purpose of observing a 
similar phenomenon with a view to ascertaining 
the sun's parallax. In 1874 two American as- 
tronomers. Professor Watson of Michigan and 
Professor Young of Princeton University, ap- 
peared in Peking for the same object — there be- 
ing no spot on the globe where it could be seen 
[with equal advantage, and no amount of pains 
being deemed too great to verify our standard 
for measuring the magnitudes of the universe. 

True to the calculated time a black spot was 
seen travelling across the disk of the sun. Two 
days later the Emperor succumbed to an attack 
of small-pox, or, as rumor had it, pox of a more 
loathsome description. Heaven had foreshad- 



The Emperor and the Reform Party 33 

owed the event, said the people, for was not the 
sun the emblem of masculine Majesty? And 
did not the blot on the visage of Old Sol portend, 
or rather depict, the precise malady to which the 
Son of Heaven was destined to fall a victim? 
The popular mind became intensely excited, and 
the secretaries at our legation thought it advis- 
able to smuggle the astronomers and their in- 
struments out of the city in the gloaming of even- 
ing, with as much secrecy as possible. They had 
been seen erecting what looked like a battery, and 
mounting upon it something that had the ap- 
pearance of cannon, and aiming those long tubes 
at the emblem of Majesty. It was inevitable 
that the ignorant populace should hold them re- 
sponsible for the calamity which fell upon the 
Imperial house. 

To flatter the young man's mother the doctors 
of the Hanlin Academy composed for him an 
obituary record, which made him out to be a 
paragon of every virtue, proposing for his post- 
humous title the nam.e " E Hwang Te," mean- 
ing The Heroic Emperor. Yet no act in his 
short life has come to the knowledge oi the pub- 
lic which suggests the idea of heroism. 

The bereaved parent, resuming her Regency, 
cast about for a young prince to adopt, not as 



34 l'^^^ Siege in Peking 

heir presumptive to the throne but as titular 
sovereign. Among the candidates available she 
naturally selected the youngest, like the lady 
who, on being asked why she had married so old 
a man, replied that she never had but two offers 
— both old — and she naturally chose the oldest. 
The infant chosen for this high dignity was a child 
of three years, the son of the Dowager's sister, 
and the seventh brother of Hien Fung. She 
gave him the reigning title of Kwang Su, mean- 
ing Illustrious Successor, and he is now in the 
twenty-sixth year of his reign. During one-half 
of that period she exercised a Regency on the 
ground of his immaturity, and now for a third 
time she assumes to exercise it on the ground of 
his incapacity. Well might he have merited his 
illustrious title had he been permitted to carry 
out his scheme of reform. 

In her earlier days his Imperial guardian was 
not herself such an enemy to progress as she 
afterward became. As a proof of liberal tenden- 
cies may we not cite the fact that the young 
Emperor was early set to the study of the Eng- 
lish language? Two of my students were se- 
lected for his instructors. Special lessons were 
compiled by them for his Majesty's use, and, in 
'order to be sure of their correctness, those les- 



The Emperor and the Reform Party 35 

sons were submitted to me. I might, therefore, 
plead guilty of having given some bias perhaps 
to the Imperial mind. Nothing is more prob- 
able than that he derived his first impulse in the 
direction of progress from his study of English. 
Yet the honor of having converted the ease-lov- 
ing student into an ardent reformer is due above 
all others to the Cantonese doctor, Kang Yu 
Wei. 

In Chinese scholarship the Emperor distin- 
guished himself by uncommon proficiency. How 
could it be otherwise when he had for his in- 
structors a dozen or more of the most eminent 
scholars of the empire ! Of these the best known 
was the Grand Secretary, Wung Tung Ho, who 
specially befriended Kang Yu Wei and recom- 
mended him to the Emperor as a " thousand 
times more clever than myself." 

A reform party is to be found in most coun- 
tries, and at all times. Whether it possesses in- 
fluence or not depends largely on the object 
toward which it is directed. In China the lead- 
ing aim of the reform party was to strengthen 
the country by the adoption of Western meth- 
ods. Unhappily, the Chinese in general were 
not convinced of their weakness — nor were they 
inclined to take institutions, the mushroom 



36 The Siege in Peking 

growth of yesterday, in preference to those that 
bore the imprint of hoary antiquity. 

As early as the close of the first war with Eng- 
land in 1842 there were not a few Mandarins 
who advocated this policy on the principle, Fas 
est ab hoste doceri. For a time their efforts did 
not go beyond the compilation or translation of 
a few books, mostly historical or geographical, or 
both combined, with a view to acquainting China 
with the existence of other countries beyond her 
borders. One such collection, well known under 
the name of " Hai Kwo Tu Chi," a description 
of trans-oceanic nations, was made by the un- 
fortunate Viceroy Lin, who had provoked the 
war, and for having done so was sent into exile. 
Another, called " Ying Hwan Chi Lio," a de- 
scriptive history of the globe, was compiled by 
Su Ki Yu, the Governor of Fokien Province. 
So frank was this Governor in expressing his ad- 
miration for foreigners and their methods that 
the Government, deeming him an unfit man to 
be intrusted with the destinies of a Province, re- 
moved him from his post and sent him into pri- 
vate life. 

The information contained in his book he sets 
to the credit of the missionary, Abeel. Yet in 
rearranging his materials he occasionally dis- 



The Emperor and the Reform Party 37 

plays a touch of originality, such as for example 
the statement that Rhode Island is noted for the 
possession of a " colossal statue so huge that it 
spans the harbor and allows ships to pass be- 
tween its legs." 

The defeat of China in a second war in i860 
lifted this persecuted party into sudden prom- 
inence. Schools were established for the lan- 
guages and sciences of the West. Youths were 
sent abroad for education, and poor old Su Ki Yu, 
by way of compensation, was made a member of 
the Tsung Li Yamen, the newly organized Board 
of Foreign Afifairs. In recognition of his su- 
perior knowledge he was likewise appointed 
Director of the Tung Wen College, a school 
opened by the Foreign Board; dans le royaume 
des aveugles les borgnes sont rois. A work on the 
physical sciences which I prepared for the use of 
that school was printed at the expense of the 
Board, and sent forth with a laudatory preface 
from his pen. 

About the same time Dr. Yung Wing, of Can- 
ton, a graduate of Yale College, was charged 
with the supervision of a select body of youth to 
be educated at the fountain-heads of Western 
learning. They were sent to Hartford in suc- 
cessive relays, two or three hundred in all. 



38 The Siege in Peking 

and continued there until they were finally 
recalled on suspicion of having learned too 
much. 

Foreign legations were now for the first time 
established in Peking, and exercised an educa- 
tional influence on the government. In this di- 
rection their first and perhaps their most im- 
portant result v/as to induce the Chinese to send 
legations to the West. 

Before venturing on a step so revolutionary 
they desired first to explore the ground. For 
this purpose they despatched to Europe and 
America the so-called " CEcumenical Embassy," 
headed by Anson Burlingame, who had been our 
first Minister to Peking. He was a man of broad 
views and marvellous magnetism, qualities which 
gave him an ascendancy over his diplomatic col- 
leagues, leading them to adopt at that early date 
a " co-operative policy," which greatly resembles 
that so successfully advocated to-day by Secre- 
tary Hay. He also attracted the statesmen of 
China, who selected him to initiate their diplo- 
matic intercourse with the Western world. In 
this embassy he was supported by two col- 
leagues, one a Manchu, the other a Chinese, and 
accompanied by a number of students, mostly 
Manchus from the Tungwen College, who were 



The Emperor and the Reform Party 39 

sent abroad to complete such studies as they had 
begun in China. 

The reform movement had thus far been con- 
fined to the acquisition of knowledge. Nothing 
like reform in internal administration had been 
attempted. A sort of reconstruction of army and 
navy had, it is true, been commenced, accom- 
panied by the erection of arsenals and the pur- 
chase of munitions of war, but reform in any 
other sense was deemed a word of ill-omen. 
Their old institutions, like the Ark of the Cov- 
enant, were things too sacred to be touched. 

After the ill-starred war with Japan many of 
the leading Mandarins, especially the junior 
members of the HanHn Academy, became con- 
vinced that China required a thorough-going 
reformation. Reform clubs were openly estab- 
lished in the capital. Their members were the 
elite of the literati. A thrashing at the hands of 
a people whom they stigmatized as dwarfs and 
held in hereditary contempt produced tenfold 
as deep an impression as defeat by European 
powers. " Inferior to us in past ages," so rea- 
soned these reformers, " what could have ren- 
dered these Japanese so formidable ? What but 
the wholesale adoption of European methods, 
for which they have been so unjustly ridiculed. 



40 The Siege in Peking 

Why should not China, laying aside her an- 
tipathy, follow in their footsteps ? " The ex- 
pression of this sentiment created alarm at a still 
conservative Court. The reform clubs were not 
openly suppressed, but they were placed under 
surveillance and their name changed. 

In time the work of reform was taken in hand by 
the Emperor himself, under the influence, as we 
have said, of Kang Yu Wei. It was pushed with 
a zeal which alarmed and astonished the empire. 
Innovations succeeded each other with startling 
rapidity. The civil service examinations were 
ordered to be revolutionized, a system of graded 
schools was to be created. The neglected chil- 
dren of the common people were to be gathered 
into schools, for the use of which the idol tem- 
ples were to be appropriated. Schools for min- 
ing, commerce, and agriculture were to be estab- 
lished, as well as middle and higher schools of 
the ordinary type. A new university was to 
crown this pagoda of many stages, in which the 
sons of the nobility were expected to acquire the 
science and the spirit of the modern world. The 
old test of fitness for office, consisting in elegance 
of penmanship and correctness of rhythm in es- 
says and sonnets, was to be set aside, and in its 
place rigorous examinations required in sciences 




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The Emperor and the Reform Party 41 

and practical arts. Nor did the Emperor's 
sweeping changes stop here. He suppressed 
useless tribunals, encouraged the multiplication 
of newspapers, and sought to bestow upon his 
people the inestimable privilege of free speech. 

This whole scheme resembles that which has 
wrought in recent times such a wonderful trans- 
formation in the empire of Japan. From Japan 
it was in fact derived, as Kang Yu Wei himself 
confessed, he having insisted upon copying as 
far as possible the example of that country. It 
is, therefore, not very remotely traceable to the 
United States. 

When Marquis Ito recently visited Peking I 
felt myself justified in complimenting him on the 
obvious fact that Japan was exerting a greater 
influence in the way of reform in China than any 
other nation, adding " much as the moon, which 
is our nearest neighbor, raises a higher tide than 
the sun, which is more remote." I fear the Mar- 
quis did not feel flattered by a compliment which 
implied that his country shone by borrowed 
light. 

Though the educational scheme was outlined 
by Kang Yu Wei, the suggestion of the univer- 
sity is mainly due to Li Hung Chang. Trusted 
minister as he is of the Empress Dowager, he is, 



42 The Siege in Peking 

or has been, one of the most progressive states-' 
men of the empire. He it was who, during hisi 
long Viceroyalty in the North, established afi 
Tien Tsin those schools for army and navy, 
which have been so conspicuous in their influ- 
ence on China. More than any other man he 
has a right to be described as a patron of modern 
education. 

When the Rev. Gilbert Reid solicited his aid 
for his proposed International Institute, " Stop 
awhile," said Li, " you must first help me with 
my scheme for a university." 

When the Emperor finally sanctioned the pro- 
posal it was Li who, in conjunction with another 
Grand Secretary, Sun Kia Nai, nominated me 
for the presidency. 

The reformers in many instances took mis- 
sionaries — notably. Dr. Allen, Rev. Timothy 
Richard, and the Rev. Gilbert Reid — into their 
counsel. Dr. Allen has led the way in Chinese 
journalism, and to show the effect of this won- 
derful awakening it only needs to be stated that, 
while in 1895 there were in China only nineteen 
newspapers, in 1898 there were no fewer than 
seventy-six. Mr. Richard, if not a pioneer in the 
diffusion of books of useful knowledge, has, fol- 
lowing in the footsteps of Alexander William- 



The Emperor and the Reform Party 43 

son, done more than any other man to promote 
their distribution. While at the former date the 
sales from the book-stores of the Useful Knowl- 
edge Society amounted only to $800, in 1898 the 
receipts had risen to $18,000. 

The Emperor, in his wish to encourage free 
speech, did not confine himself to newspapers. 
He authorized all his officials to address him 
freely on the subject of reforms. To his desire 
to emancipate his people from the restrictions 
under which they had always labored he owes his 
downfall. 

A junior member of the Board of Rites, which 
has the superintendence of education and re- 
ligion, had prepared a memorial on desired re- 
forms in those departments, submitting it first 
to the chiefs of the Board. They refused to for- 
ward it to his Majesty. The Emperor was en- 
raged that they should dare to intervene between 
him and any of his progressive officials. He de- 
prived them of office. Those old conservatives, 
burning with shame for their disgrace, hastened 
away to the country palace and threw themselves 
at the feet of the Empress Dowager, imploring 
her to resume her Regency in order to save the 
empire from the furious driving of this young 
Phaeton, who was in danger of setting the world 



44 The Siege in Peking 

on fire. She listened to their prayer, and, strik- 
ing him as with a thunderbolt, entered upon her 
reactionary career. She began by requiring him 
to address to her a humble petition confessing 
his incapacity and imploring her to teach him 
" how to govern his people." 

Kang Yu Wei and some of his associates, be- 
ing warned by the Emperor, made good their 
escape, but six of them were brought to the 
block, and many others followed at no great in- 
terval. The programme of reform was blotted 
out with the blood of its advocates. This was 
Ihe coup d'etat of August, 1898. 

Exit Emperor — enter Empress Dowager. 



CHAPTER III 

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER AND HER CLIQUE 

This is the third time the Dowager has come 
on the stage in the character of Regent. May not 
the 3'oung Emperor reappear once more in the 
character of reformer, clothed with a portion at 
least of his former authority? What an oppor- 
tunity was thrown away when the foreign Min- 
isters in Peking declined to uphold him, and 
allowed an ambitious woman to reverse the di- 
rection of his policy. Yet they ought not to be 
censured for maintaining the role of passive on- 
lookers — the coup d'etat having been effected 
without great bloodshed, and without any pre- 
monition of the disastrous convulsions for which 
it prepared the way. 

In i860 they committed a worse blunder by 
reinstating this same woman, who then, as now, 
had fled from an invading force, and aiding her 
in the suppression of a more magnificent reform. 
I allude to the Taiping rebels. Imbued with 
principles borrowed from the religion of the 



46 The Siege in Peking 

West, and established at the southern capital, 
where they were easy of access, those insurgents, 
if favored by foreign nations, would have shown 
themselves amenable to good influences. Pagan- 
ism would have been swept away, and with it 
a permanent cause of conflict with Christian 
powers, while a vigorous native power would 
have been set up in place of an old decaying 
dynasty of foreign origin. 

A still better thing might have been for Eng- 
land and France to divide China at that epoch, 
and forestall the complications attendant on the 
greater number of claimants who are now com- 
peting for power, influence, or territory. On 
some of these questions opinions may differ, but 
in view of subsequent events there is no room to 
doubt that it would have been good policy to 
sustain the Emperor in his attempt to renovate 
the empire. Instead of a capital in ashes, and a 
nation debased to barbarism, what an impetus 
would have been given to all kinds of improve- 
ment and what horrors would have been averted ! 

The best apology for want of foresight is that 
the Chinese themselves appeared to acquiesce in 
the usurpation. It was in appearance only, as 
we afterward learned from sundry appeals on 
behalf of the Emperor, as well as from threats of 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 47 

rebellion in case of violence to his person. 
Diplomacy, with all its vaunted skill, is at best 
a succession of happy (or unhappy) accidents, a 
series of blind attempts to penetrate the future. 
Of Him who holds in His hand the arcana of 
destiny is it not said " that He maketh diviners 
mad " ? Not only were our diplomatic repre- 
sentatives unable to see within the veil; by the 
usage of nations they were precluded from ab- 
jecting to a change of administration which had 
the appearance of being acceptable to the people. 
Before proceeding with our narrative a retro- 
spect of the Dowager's romantic and eventful 
career will not be out of place. 

One piece of romance originating some five 
years ago in a New York Sunday paper may at 
once be pricked with the needle of truth. I re- 
fer to the story of her being originally a Canton 
slave-girl — presented to the Emperor by one of 
his Tartar generals who had returned from that 
city. Her family is well known in Peking. Her 
brother, lately deceased, was Duke Chao. Her 
sister married a younger brother of Hien Fung, 
and if further proof were required I may add 
that Dr. Pritchard, an English medical mission- 
ary, being called in to prescribe for the ducal 
family, was asked to bring with him his wife, and 



48 The Siege in Peking 

on that occasion both he and Mrs. Pritchard had 
the honor of being served with tea by the hand 
of a venerable white-haired lady who was mother 
of the Empress Dowager. 

Outside of the family of Duke Chao, the Dow- 
ager has an extensive connection, embracing sub- 
divisions of two or three of the Eight Banners. 
Some years ago she received them all as her 
family relatives, sans ceremonie, at a temple near 
the great East Gate. In the palace she was Em- 
press, and very few of them were high enough to 
be admitted to her presence. Here she was one 
of them, and she made them feel that the ties of 
kindred were not forgotten. Justice requires 
that we should chronicle this good trait in a 
woman who since then has shown herself to be 
such a monster of iniquity. 

Before she was twenty she became secondary 
wife of the Emperor Hien Fung, and had given 
him an heir to the throne. His consort being 
childless he was overjoyed by the birth of a son, 
and, to signalize his satisfaction, he raised the 
young mother to equal rank with Consort No. i, 
assigning her a palace on the west not inferior 
to that of her colleague on the east. 

Beautiful, gifted, and well educated, she 
adorned her new position. When in 1861 it 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 49 

came to a joint Regency, Tse An, " the daughter 
of peace," was quite echpsed by her brilliant col- 
league, Tse Hi, " the daughter of joy." In the 
previous year they had both fled to Tartary with 
their lord on the approach of the allies. Whether 
the stubborn Tse Hi prompted him to fly rather 
than submit, it is impossible to determine; but 
such a course would not have been out of keep- 
ing with what we now know of her obstinate, 
unyielding character. Had her character been 
dififerent would she not have taken warning by 
her former hegira, and made peace in good time 
to save her capital? 

On that occasion she was the leading spirit in 
the joint Regency ; with Prince Kung, brother of 
her deceased husband as Prime Minister, a post 
which he won by taking the lives of two other 
princes, as he gave out in order to preserve that 
of the infant Emperor. Her recent flight was, 
therefore, not her first. Is it not remarkable that 
she should live to repeat the experience after a 
lapse of forty years? Instead of being taught 
caution in the school of adversity she seems to 
have been emboldened and embittered. 

At a summer palace rebuilt for her use on the 
Hill of Longevity, overlooking the beautiful 
Kwenming Lake, she had before her the spec- 



50 The Siege in Peking 

tacle of the ruins of the Yuenming-yuen, the 
most sumptuous abode of Oriental majesty, 
where she had dwelt in the heydey of youth — 
it was too costly for an impoverished govern- 
ment to undertake its restoration — nor did the 
view tend to propitiate her feelings toward the 
authors of its destruction. Here, on the borders 
of the lake, she Hved in nominal retirement on 
laying down her second Regency some fifteen 
years ago, but never for a day did she cease to 
concern herself in affairs of state, or to exert po- 
litical influence through the medium of the Em- 
peror. Was he not her adopted son? Did he 
not owe his elevation to her choice? She was 
resolved that he should not forget these obliga- 
tions, and, by way of keeping them in mind, she 
required him to visit her once in five days at the 
distance of fifteen miles, and to knock his head 
or perform the kotow at her feet. 

At all times a power behind the throne, the 
part he took in administration was clearly indi- 
cated in a decree that appeared some months be- 
fore the coup d'etat, in which the Emperor re- 
quires all great officers throughout the realm to 
render thanks for their appointment to the Dow- 
ager as well as to himself. He had never ceased 
to consult her in regard to such appointments. 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 51 

Was it not natural that, on returning to power, 
she should require him to issue a decree inviting 
her to " teach him how to govern " ? 

In the eyes of most of her subjects her inter- 
vention was not merely justifiable — it was im- 
perative. She was not known as conservative in 
any objectionable sense. Had she not led the 
way in encouraging, or at least permitting, her 
people to learn the arts of the West? After 
forty years of experience, was there any danger 
that she would adopt an opposite policy? She 
herself denied that she was actuated by hostility 
to progress. Said she, in an edict explaining her 
position : " When we have been choked it does 
not follow that we are to cease eating, merely for 
fear it may happen again." 

She meant to say that the Emperor had 
crammed his reform down the throats of his sub- 
jects with dangerous haste. She only wished to 
give them time to digest their aliment. 

In another edict she forbade any further search 
to be made for the accomplices of Kang Yu W^ei, 
because, as she said, she abhorred the shedding 
of her people's blood. It is not surprising that 
the world was led to credit her with a degree of 
amiable humanity as well as prudent moderation. 
How insincere were her professions In both ut- 



52 The Siege in Peking 

terances will appear from the intemperate zeal 
which she soon displayed in undoing what had 
been done by the Emperor, and in pursuing the 
alleged conspirators. 

These tendencies were not at once apparent, 
especially as her past record was such as to in- 
spire confidence. This time, however, she had 
taken the reins into her hands with the avowed 
intention of undoing the Emperor's work. Re- 
versing the engine (to change the figure) the 
train began to move on the back track, slowly at 
first, but gradually attaining a furious velocity 
that rendered a smash-up inevitable. 

This tendency was not perceived by some of 
the Emperor's most trusted Ministers. The 
High Commissioner Sun, for instance, when a 
few days after the coup I called on him with a 
list of nominations to chairs in the new univer- 
sity, declined to take action until he should have 
an audience with the Dowager, not knowing 
whether he might not himself be dismissed from 
ofifice or subjected to some heavier penalty. A 
few days later, satisfied on this point, he sanc- 
tioned them all and assured me there would be 
no change of poHcy as to the educational 
programme. 

Marquis Ito had Just arrived from Japan, at- 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 53 

tracted no doubt by the Emperor's professed de- 
sire to copy the example of that island empire. 
Our High Commissioner and the Metropolitan 
Prefect united in giving him an entertainment, 
inviting Li Hung Chang to meet him. They 
also invited me as president of the university — 
the only Occidental present on that occasion. 
The conversation turned wholly on the subject 
of reform in Japan. The Marquis related how, 
returning from his studies in England over thirty 
years ago, he was asked by the Prince of Chosiu 
if he thought it would be needful to change any- 
thing in the political or social life of Japan. 
" Yes," he replied, " everything must be 
changed." 

So successful had he been in effecting reforms 
in Japan that it was hoped he might be retained 
in Peking as adviser for a moderate course of 
reform in China, such as might be carried out 
without provoking a revolution. He had not 
come with any such expectation. Needless to 
say, his advice was not sought for by the reac- 
tionary government. 

Reactionary measures began at length to 
appear in the Official Gazette by heaps and 
clusters. The old examination system for the 
civil service was confirmed. The creation of 



54 The Siege in Peking 

common schools was countermanded. The 
Bureaus of Mines, Commerce, and Agriculture 
were suppressed. Official sinecures were re- 
stored. 

Almost the only progressive institution left 
standing was the new university. Whether this 
was due to Li Hung Chang having been its ad- 
vocate, or to Yung Lu becoming its protector, 
or to both, certain it is that it appeared to be in 
no danger of suppression at the hour of the out- 
break. New buildings were in process of erec- 
tion, and the appointment of new professors 
authorized up to that very date. Time-serving 
censors had denounced it, but Yung Lu came for- 
ward to defend it, saying that " to suppress the 
university would be a disgrace in the eyes of 
foreign nations." 

In the way of social progress a very striking 
innovation took place, under the direct influence 
of the Empress Dowager. For her it was a mas- 
ter stroke of policy, filling the ladies of the lega- 
tions with delight and securing their powerful 
influence in her favor. In former years they had 
never been received at Court, but the Dowager 
now thought fit to intimate her willingness to 
receive them. 

The Emperor at the beginning of the year re- 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 55 

ceived the Ministers, as he had always been wont 
to do, to present the congratulations of the sea- 
son. They found him taciturn, depressed, and 
apparently suffering in health. What wonder, 
when he was no more than the shadow of his 
former self, serving then, as he has continued 
to do, for a mere pictorial representation of 
majesty. 

Being a woman, the Dowager, with all her self- 
assertion, did not venture to call the Embassa- 
dors into her presence. Such proceeding would, 
without doubt, have resulted in a counter revo- 
lution producing an earthquake shock through- 
out the empire. In lieu thereof she thought she 
might arrive at the same object by admitting the 
ladies of the legations. Perhaps, too, she was not 
entirely free from being influenced by feminine 
curiosity. Those who were invited did not fail 
to accept, nor had they any reason to decline, as 
thus far the Dowager had not in any way be- 
trayed her savage nature. 

She treated them with most engaging conde- 
scension, and bestowed a little souvenir on 
each — a talisman to cherish kindly sentiments 
and bind them to her party. The ladies de- 
scribed her manners as charming, and her ap- 
pearance, done up as she was, as that of a woman 



56 The Siege in Peking 

of thirty, though she was then not far from sixty- 
five. 

So far from displaying anti-foreign sentiments 
in the formation of her poHcy, the Regent took 
pains to conciHate foreign powers. Of this, a 
striking proof was the readiness with which she 
yielded to the demand of the French Minister 
that the privileges of official rank in the Man- 
darinate should be granted to Roman CathoHc 
missionaries according to their rank and stand- 
ing in the church. 

In domestic affairs she had, it is true, begun 
to persecute the party of reform, and to pursue 
its leaders with relentless severity. For this her 
excuse was that they had plotted against her — 
an excuse abundantly valid according to Chinese 
precedent ; for any such action on their part con- 
stituted treason in the eyes of the administration. 

It is believed that her suspicions were not ill- 
founded ; that the young Emperor, prompted by 
his advisers, had even despatched General Yuen 
with secret orders to take the life of the Viceroy 
Yu Lu, a main supporter of her cause. On the 
way to Tien Tsin he suddenly changed his mind, 
and, instead of the point of a poniard, he pre- 
sented the Viceroy with the reverse end of an 
arrow which he carried as symbol of his com- 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 57 

mission to take the Viceroy's Hfe. By his de- 
fection the success of the coup d'etat was assured. 
He has accordingly since then been one of the 
Dowager's trusted favorites, and now holds the 
high office of Governor of Shantung, 

iThe hints sometimes thrown out that in her 
earlier years she had arrived at undivided sway, 
first by disposing of her lord and then by setting 
aside his consort, are unworthy even of refuta- 
tion, nor is it to be credited that she had any de- 
signs on the life of the young Emperor, whom 
she found it so convenient to employ as a tool. 
He serves her for a figure-head, and in his name 
she has put forth her most objectionable decrees. 
Had she put him out of the way she must have 
found it necessary to adopt a successor. This 
she was able to do without the perpetration of 
'such a crime. The Emperor, being childless, 
she announced at the beginning of this year her 
decision to adopt as son, and successor to her 
son, the son of Prince Tuan, grandson of an elder 
brother of Hien Fung. ! 

This lad, Pu Chun by name, was fourteen 
years of age, in the direct line of succession, and 
nothing would be easier than to have the Em- 
peror abdicate in his favor as soon as she might 
deem it desirable to do so. 



58 The Siege in Peking 

The adoption of the great Aga, as the heir to 
the throne is famiharly called, raised his father, 
previously almost unknown, to sudden prom- 
inence. Personally Prince Tuan seems to have 
been in the confidence of the Dowager, and since 
then he has controlled her counsels, while in re- 
lation to all the grandees of the empire he has 
enjoyed the prestige inseparable from one who 
is father to a reigning monarch — so soon was Pu 
Chan expected to succeed to the Dragon 
Throne. | 

That which appeared to bring about an un- 
favorable change in her foreign policy was the 
occurrence of repeated aggressions on her terri- 
tory by foreign powers. When Germany ob- 
tained the cession of Kiao Chao, under circum- 
stances which will be explained in the next chap- 
ter, Russia at once insisted on being permitted 
to occupy the seaport of Port Arthur as terminus 
for her Siberian railroad. England, always on 
the alert to check the advance of the Northern 
power, demanded a seaport on the opposite side 
of the Gulf of Pechili. France, unwilHng to be 
left out in the cold, asserted her pretensions as 
the equal of any of the great powers, and in the 
name of the balance of power insisted on obtain- 
ing the seaport of Kwang Chao, between Can- 



The Empress Dowager and Her Clique 59 

ton and her Annamite dependencies. Italy, too, 
scoured the coast of Chekiang in quest of a con- 
venient port to occupy. 

At each step in this series the haughty Regent 
became more infuriated, ordering that prepara- 
tions should everywhere be made for resisting 
invasion, and openly expressing her will that in 
case of any attempt to encroach further on Chi- 
nese territory she would engage in war, no mat- 
ter which or how many powers might be con- 
cerned. At this juncture the Boxer agitation 
hove in sight, and she welcomed it as a heaven- 
sent auxiliary. 

That movement now claims our attention, and 
with it the fate of the Dowager is inseparably 
bound up. 

Never has her character been so much dis- 
cussed as during this, her third Regency. She 
has been compared to Elizabeth of England and 
to Catherine of Russia, but, in my opinion, for 
her the fittest prototype is Jezebel of Samaria, 
who slaughtered the prophets of the Lord, and 
rioted with the priests of Baal. 



CHAPTER IVj 

THE BOXERS AND THEIR ALLIES 

(Those Boxers are not, as represented, a new 
body called into existence by the missionary 
work in China. They are, on the contrary, an 
old association, a kind of Masonic order, which 
attracted the attention of the Government more 
than a century ago. 

In 1803 they were placed on the index as a 
prohibited association by the Emperor Kia 
Ching, on account of their tendency to cause 
trouble in the state. They originated in a some- 
what benighted corner of Shan Tung, and after 
this interdict they languished in obscurity until 
they were quickened into life by contact with 
Europeans. Their creed takes its shape — 

** If shape that may be called which shape has none 
Distinguishable in member, joint or limb " — 

from a blending of the three religions of Buddha, 

Laotse^ and Confucius, tog;ether with all sorts of 

60 



The Boxers and Their AlUes 61 

popular superstitions. They profess certain 
mysteries of their own, such as hypnotism, and 
to this they owe the fascination which they exer- 
cise over the ignorant. Meeting with susceptible 
persons they employ them as mediums, and 
through them in a state of trance they obtain 
communications from their gods. Many of 
them possess the power of throwing themselves 
into this abnormal state at will. In drilling for 
war all their soldiers (for the most part very 
young persons) are expected to do this, as well 
as to practise pugilism and other antics. I have 
myself seen them drilling, though I did not 
venture to remain long enough in their midst 
to take photographs with a camera. Riding in 
the street one day, a lad apparently of sixteen 
ran across in front of my horse, threw himself 
on a bank, and went into a trance. I was tempted 
to wait to see what would follow, but, reflecting 
that on coming out of this hypnotic state he 
w^ould probably attack me and so bring on a riot, 
I thought it prudent to move on. On the eve of 
an encounter they kneel down and bow them- 
selves toward the southeast, which is the direc- 
tion from Peking of Southern Shan Tung, where 
they originated. Having invoked the protection 
of their gods, accompanied by hocus-pocus forms, 



62 The Siege in Peking 

they believe themselves invulnerable ; a belief no 
doubt due to the fact that in a hypnotic condition 
they are insensible to outward impressions, and 
no longer conscious of pain. 

When recently Catholic missionaries pene- 
trated their stronghold, a collision was inevitable, 
and two of them, Germans by nationality, were 
murdered. This provoked the intervention of 
the Kaiser, who not only exacted the execution 
of three of the murderers but profited by the oc- 
currence to get possession of a seaport in that 
quarter. 

The people of the province were greatly ex- 
cited, not so much perhaps by territorial aggres- 
sion as by their opposition to railway lines, which 
the Germans commenced laying out. In many 
instances they tore up the track and attacked the 
engineers. The Boxers became at once trans- 
formed from a Masonic fraternity into a great 
political organization. Their propaganda spread 
like wildfire. Bands of youths were to be seen 
undergoing their mysterious discipline in every 
hamlet, nor were they confined to the stronger 
sex. 

A special branch was created for the young 
women of the province — a feature the more re- 
markable on account of the jealousy with which 



The Boxers and Their Allies 63 

Chinese women are ordinarily kept in seclusion. 
One of their war-songs commences thus : 

" We, the brothers of the Long Sword, will lead the 

van; 
Our sisters of the Red Lantern will bring up the rear 

guard.* 
Together, we will attack the barbarians, 
And drive them into the sea." 

Their designation of Brothers of the Long 
Sword is due to the patronage afforded them by 
Yu Hien, a Manchu Governor, who, desiring to 
oppose the Germans in their railway enterprise, 
found the fittest instruments among these fanati- 
cal Boxers. Calling them into his Yamen he 
had them perform in his presence, and, becom- 
ing apparently convinced of the reality of their 
pretensions, he distributed among them a num- 
ber of long swords, the only weapon for which 
they expressed a wish. 

They were not long in learning to use them. 
Not only were railway engineers and missionary 
stations attacked, but Christian villages were 
everywhere laid waste. The foreign represent- 

* If anyone doubt that Chinese women are easily infected 
by a martial spirit let him consider the fact that the Taiping 
rebels formed female brigades, as these later fanatics have 
done. An extremely popular ballad, called Mulon the Maiden 
Chief, affords evidence of the same thing. See Appendix. 



64 The Siege in Peking 

atives at Peking demanded the removal of the 
Governor, and he was replaced by Chang Yao, 
a Chinese general who proceeded vigorously 
against the Boxers, making it so hot for them 
that they crossed the boundary into the neigh- 
boring province of Chilhi, where Peking is situ- 
ated, and where the Manchu viceroy was known 
to be their friend. 

Chang Yao's fidelity to his commission gave 
offence to the Court, and he was in turn replaced 
by the time-serving Yuen, who in many instances 
has shown himself capable of playing a double 
part. 

Yu Hien, on arriving at the capital, was dec- 
orated with a breast-plate bearing the monogram 
for " Happiness," written by the elegant pencil 
of the Dowager herself, meaning no doubt that 
he had been the happy discoverer of an auxiliary 
force. He was then transferred to the Governor- 
ship of Shan Si, where he has since imbrued his 
hands in the blood of more than fifty mission- 
aries. At his instance the leaders of the Boxers 
were called to the capital and admitted to the 
palace of Prince Tuan, father of the Heir Ap- 
parent, who, on seeing their performances, be- 
came himself a convert, and has since continued 
to be their ardent patron. 



The Boxers and Their AUies 65 

The Dowager, at Tuan's suggestion doubtless, 
allowed them to give her an ocular demonstra- 
tion of their supernatural powers. She also 
seems to have had her doubts dispelled, if she 
had any, as from that moment she gave them 
free scope, and took good care that none of her 
officials should put any obstruction in their way. 
This hypothesis, and no other, can account for 
her readiness to stake the life of her dynasty on 
the success of the Boxers. 

Unglaube du bist nicht so viel ein Ungeheuer, 
Als Aberglaube du ! 

(Of the twin monsters, unbelief and supersti- 
tion, the more monstrous is superstition, ex- 
claims a German poet.) 

General Nieh, a Chinese who commanded the 
forces of the Metropolitan Province, having 
killed some of the Boxers, was visited with a 
severe reprimand. The Viceroy, desirous of 
keeping on good terms with foreigners, de- 
spatched troops against them. Having had in- 
structions from the Empress he took good care 
that his troops should fire over their heads or 
employ nothing but blank cartridges. None of 
the Boxers were killed. Their pretensions to in- 
vulnerability won credence among the people. 



66 The Siege in Peking 

Vast numbers flocked to their standard, and they 
moved on Hke a devastating flood, sweeping 
away every Christian community that lay in their 
track. Two English missionaries were killed not 
far from the capital. One had been killed in the 
Province of Shan Tung. How many Catholic 
missionaries were slain I am unable to say, but 
the number of converts destroyed by their merci- 
/ less foe was estimated by Bishop Favier at not 
less than thirty thousand. 

The course of their march was steadily in the 
direction of Peking, for, although edicts were 
from time to time issued forbidding their ad- 
vance, they were always secretly encouraged to 
go forward — the double-faced Dowager menac- 
ing them with one hand, to please the foreigner ; 
and beckoning them with the other, to please her- 
self and Prince Tuan. 

The cause of the Boxers was helped by a wide- 
spread belief that the year would be unlucky be- 
cause the Eighth Moon would be intercalary. 
Twice in five years a month is duplicated, mak- 
ing thirteen in the year. It Is not, however, un- 
lucky unless It be the eighth, which is not a mat- 
ter of choice. 

I may here add a reference to the calendar 
-which is not superstition, but statistical. Ac- 



The Boxers and Their Allies 67 

cording to the North China Herald, out of thirty- 
four anti-foreign riots that have taken place, four- 
teen have occurred in the month of June. This 
was announced by way of warning in April or 
May, and the frightful outbreak at the capital 
makes fifteen in the same month. For this enor- 
mous preponderance I can ofiEer no reason un- 
less it be due to the frequency of drought at that 
season, in conjunction with the orgies of a three- 
days' festival. 

One or two specimens of the manifestoes issued 
by these Boxers will serve to show their animus. 
One which was extensively placarded in Peking 
began thus: 

"For forty years the foreigners have been\ 
turning the empire upside down. They have 
taken our seaports, got possession of the admin- 
istration of our revenues [referring to the Cus- 
toms service], and they do despite to our gods 
and sages." 

To most of their proclamations they prefix the 
motto, " Uphold the Great Pure Dynasty, and 
destroy the ocean barbarians." 

To curry favor with the government they took 
the name of volunteers, and came to be recog- 
nized as patriots, although they had no hesita- 
tion in ravaging the towns and destroying the 



68 The Siege in Peking 

property of their countrymen, who were not in 
any way connected with foreigners. If called to 
account for so doing, they could always defend 
themselves on the ground that those people were 
consumers of foreign goods. 

The new recruits by whom their ranks were 
swelled belonged mostly to the laboring classes, 
and here the third motive comes into play. 
Some were boatmen, whose lumbering craft lay 
rotting on the banks of the Pei Ho, because they 
had been superseded by steam navigation. Some 
were conductors of caravans or drivers of wag- 
ons, thrown out of employ by railway transporta- 
tion. Letter-carriers (for China has had a rudi- 
mentary postal system for many centuries) also 
joined the hostile host, because they found them- 
selves thrown out of service by new postal 
arrangements — the slow transmission of intelli- 
gence by foot or mounted courier being super- 
seded by the telegraphic wire. Finally, workers 
in metals and weavers on hand-looms came in 
crowds to reinforce a body which proposed to 
destroy the products of Western machinery. 
The peasantry, too, were far and wide induced 
to espouse the same cause, not by a fear of com- 
petition, but by a long-protracted drought, 
which made it impossible to sow their fields or 



The Boxers and Their AUies 69 

gather their crops. They were made to beUeve 
that heaven had withheld its rain, either through 
the diaboHcal arts of foreigners or by being of- 
fended at their presence, and that the blood of 
those foreigners alone would propitiate the gods. 
The following specimen, of which thousands 
of copies were scattered at Tien Tsin, is peculiar 
in the prominence assigned to Buddhism : 

SACRED EDICT. 

ISSUED BY THE LORD OF WEALTH AND HAP- 

PINESS. 

" The Catholic and Protestant religions being \ 
insolent to the Gods and destructive of holy 
things, rendering no obedience to Buddhism 
and enraging both Heaven and Earth; the 
rain-clouds no longer visit us, but 8,000,000 
Spirit Soldiers will descend from Heaven and 
sweep the Empire clean of all foreigners. Then 
will the gentle showers once more water our 
lands; and, when the tread of soldiers and the 
clash of steel are heard, threatening woes to our 
people, then the Buddha's Patriotic League of 
Boxers will protect the Empire and bring peace 
to all. 

" Hasten, then, to spread this doctrine far and 
wide; for, if you gain one adherent to the faith, 
your own person will be absolved from all future 
misfortunes. If you gain five adherents to the 



70 The Siege in Peking 

faith, your whole family will be absolved from 
all evils ; if you gain ten adherents to the faith, 
your whole village will be absolved from all 
calamities. Those who gain no adherents to the 
cause shall be decapitated ; for, until all foreigners 
have been exterminated, the rain can never visit 
us. Those who have been so unfortunate as to 
have drunk water from wells poisoned by foreign- 
ers should at once make use of the following 
Divine Prescription, the ingredients of which are 
to be decocted and swallowed, when the poisoned 
patient will recover : 

Dried black plums half an ounce. 

Solanum dulcamara half an ounce. 

Liquorice root half an ounce." 

If it be asked what were our Ministers in 
Peking doing all the while, that they adopted nO' 
effective measures to avert the coming danger, I 
answer they were, one and all, not insensible to 
appeals which reached them from without. Yet 
they never for a moment suspected that there 
was any real danger of an insurrection in the 
capital. 

On that point official information from the Chi- 
nese Government outweighed the representations 
of missionaries. Turning a deaf ear to the Cas- 
sandra prophecies of the latter, they allowed 



The Boxers and Their Allies 71 

themselves to be soothed by the siren song of the 
former. 

"Those Boxers," said the Mandarins, "are not 
soldiers. They only practise a sort of innocent 
gymnastic with a view to the protection of their 
own homes. Sometimes, indeed, they get into 
disputes with their Christian neighbors leading 
to bloodshed, but they are an undiscipHned rab- 
ble, who cannot make head against the military. 
The Dowager Empress will at once issue orders 
for them to disperse and return to their homes." 

As to the comparative safety of Peking I was ' 
myself as much astray as any of the Ministers, 
for I wrote to my relations that I thought the 
capital in no danger, as it was patrolled by a well- 
organized military force. " Peking," I said, " is , 
the safest place in China." 

For not foreseeing the rising in the capital one 
Minister is not more blameworthy than another, 
yet may the French Minister fairly be held culpa- 
ble for neglecting to take eflfective measures to 
stay the scourge which destroyed the flourishing 
missionary work carried on by his countrymen. 
Had he seized the Chinese gun-boats, and laid 
an embargo on the seaports of China, the gov- 
ernment would soon have been brought to its 
'senses. 



72 The Siege in Peking 

Though apprehending no sudden outbreak, the 
diplomatic body still thought it prudent to de- 
mand permission to introduce a guard of ma- 
rines for their several legations. The Yamen 
objected, and parleying went on for some weeks. 
At length, on the 27th of May, the railway to 
Paoting Fu was torn up, the station-houses 
burned down, some of the employees killed, 
and others put to flight. 

Taking alarm for the first time, the Ministers 
decided to proceed without the consent of the 
Yamen. The guards were sent for, and they ar- 
rived (about four hundred and fifty including of- 
ficers) not an hour too soon, for the next day the 
other branch of the track was also destroyed, and 
communication with the sea-coast completely 
cut off. This was the beginning of the siege. 




if" 




■l, 


1 f 


# 


1 




CHAPTER y 

SIEGE OF THE LEGATIONS IN PEKING 

This siege in Peking will undoubtedly take 
rank as one of the most notable in the annals of 
history. Others have been longer. The be- 
sieged have been in most cases more numerous, 
their sufferings have oftentimes been greater, 
yet this siege stands out uniquely as the uprising 
of a great nation against the whole of the civ- 
ilized world. 

Cooped up within the narrow bounds of one 
legation — the British, which covered the largest 
area and contained the largest number of build- 
ings — were people of no fewer than fourteen 
nationalities and the Ministers of eleven nations, 
the whole number of foreigners not much short 
of one thousand, and having under their protec- 
tion about two thousand native Christians. Out- 
side of the city gates, somewhere between the 
city and the sea, was an army under the banners 
of the eight foremost powers of the world ad- 
vancing to the rescue, and the eyes of the world 
73 



74 The Siege in Peking 

were fixed on that movement with an intensity 
of interest which no tragedy has ever awakened 
in the spectators of the most moving scenes of a 
theatre. 

All the appliances of modern civilization con- 
tribute to this effect. The telegraph has flashed 
the news of our distress beneath the waves of the 
ocean, and the navy yards and camps in the four 
quarters of the earth are set in commotion. The 
politics of nations give way to the interest of the 
universal pubHc in the one great question of the 
possibility of rescue. From day to day the daily 
papers chronicle now the advance, then the re- 
treat of the rescuing party. Hopes and fears rise 
and fall in alternate fluctuation. At one time 
the besieged are reported as comfortably enjoy- 
ing themselves, protected and well fed; at an- 
other they are represented as having been mas- 
sacred to a man with all imaginable attendant 
horrors. It is our object in this chapter to pre- 
sent its successive phases as they actually oc- 
curred, without going back to discuss preliminary 
questions. 

T^ne siege divides itself into two distinct stages. 
During the first of these, of only ten days' dura- 
tion, the Boxers are our conspicuous enemies, 
the Government and soldiers of the Chinese Em- 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 75" 

pire keeping themselves studiously in the back- 
ground. In the second stage, which lasted eight 
weeks, the Government and its soldiers come 
prominently forward, and the Boxers almost 
disappear. 

The guards summoned for the eight legations 
were not over four hundred and fifty, including 
officers, yet they saved the situation. Had they 
been delayed no more than forty-eight hours the 
whole foreign community in Peking must have 
perished, for reliable rumor affirmed that the 
Boxers had resolved to attack the legations and 
destroy all foreign residents during the midsum- 
mer festival, which occurs early in June. With- 
out that handful of marines defence would have 
been hopeless. 

Rumor (in this case also reliable) further af- , 
firmed that the Empress Dowager had resolved 
to give the Boxers a free hand in their conflict. 
Should they succeed, so much the better. Should 
they fail, there would still be room to represent 
(as Chinese diplomacy has industriously done) 
that the government had been overpowered and 
its good intentions thwarted by the uprising of 
an irresistible mob. 

Rumor further asserted that, by way of clear- 
ing the ground for their operations, the Empress 



76 The Siege in Peking 

Dowag-er had given consent to the complete de- 
struction of the quarter of the city occupied by 
the foreign colony, viz., a street called, from the 
number of legations which are situated on or 
near to it, " Legation Street," together with 
numerous blocks of Chinese buildings to a con- 
siderable distance on either side. 

On the 9th of June, buildings and property 
belonging to foreigners in the southern, or Chi- 
nese, division of the capital were destroyed by 
fire. Foreigners, whether missionaries or civil- 
ians, living at outlying points in the Tartar city 
took refuge under their respective national flags. 
Missionaries brought with them their flocks, 
small or great, of native converts, who were 
equally exposed to the rage of their enemies. 

All possible measures were preconcerted for 
defence. Notice of our peril was flashed to the 
sea-board by a roundabout route, and it was 
hoped that we might maintain ourselves for a 
few days until the promised relief should arrive. 
A strong body of marines, led by Admiral Sey- 
mour and Captain McCalla, set out from Tien 
Tsin by rail, intending to repair the road, not 
knowing how much it was damaged, and hoping 
to reach us in two or three days. That hope 
proved illusory, for week succeeded week, during 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 77 

which we were encouraged by fictitious reports 
of their advance, while in reaHty they had been 
driven back upon their base and the destruction 
of the railway completed. Had they in the first 
instance abandoned the railway, and pressed for- 
ward across the remaining interval of some forty 
miles, they might perhaps have succeeded in re- 
inforcing our Legation Guards, placing our com- 
munity in security, and perhaps they might have 
averted the subsequent declaration of war ; but I 
am anticipating. 

A larger expedition was being organized by 
the admirals of the combined squadron at the 
mouth of the river. On the 19th of June a cir- 
cular from the Yamen notified the foreign Min- 
isters that their admirals had demanded the sur- 
render of the forts (they did not say had carried 
the forts by storm, which was the fact), adding, 
that " this is an act of war. Our country is there- 
fore at war with yours. You must accordingly 
quit our capital within twenty-four hours accom- 
panied by all your nationals." Exit Boxers — 
enter the regular Chinese army. 

Thenceforward we were exposed to all the 
force the Government could bring against us. 

Warned by a kind letter from Mr. Squiers, 
Secretary of the American Leg;ation^ offering me 



78 The Siege in Pekin 

the hospitality of his house, I had previously 
there taken refuge from the university, where I 
had been living alone at a distance of two miles. 
iWhile we remained in the United States legation 
no direct attack was made upon us by fire-arms, 
but we were in hourly danger of being destroyed 
by fire, or trampled down by a rush of the Big 
Swords. 

The fires of which I have spoken as having 
first shown themselves in the outer city were not 
confined to mission chapels. A large quarter, 
containing the richest magazines of foreign 
goods and estimated to be worth from five to 
ten millions of pounds sterling, was laid in ashes 
by the infuriated Boxers, not merely with a view 
to ridding themselves of industrial competition : 
perhaps also in the expectation that a fair wind 
would carry the conflagration over the walls and 
destroy the foreign settlement. 

As a matter of fact the high tower overlooking 
the great central gate of the Tartar city caught 
fire and was consumed. The firebrands fell in 
profusion on the inside of the walls, and we all 
turned out in expectation of having to fight the 
flames. Happily a change of wind rendered this 
unnecessary. 

Within a few days conflagrations were kindled 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 79 

by the Boxers themselves in the inner city — 
missionary chapels, school-houses, churches, and 
cathedrals were wrapped in flames, and lighted 
the lurid sky night by night for a whole week. 

The new, or northern, cathedral, standing in 
an open ground by itself, was considered as not 
incapable of defence. Monsignor Favier bravely 
resolved to hold it at all hazards, and thus pre- 
serve the lives of three thousand converts who 
had there taken refuge. In this he was aided by 
a volunteer band of forty brave marines, French, 
Italian, and Austrian, together with a disciplined 
force of native Christians. The defence of that 
cathedral forms the most brilliant page in the 
history of the siege. 

It was not, however, until the siege was raised 
that we had any conception of the severity of the 
conflict that devoted band had to wage in order 
to keep the enemy at bay, for from us, though 
separated only by an interval of two miles in a di- 
rect line, they were cut off from communication 
as completely as if they had been situated at the 
North Pole. 

After the declaration of war and the ultimatum 
above referred to, the Ministers had a meeting, 
at which they agreed that it would be impossible 
to comply with the demand of the Chinese Gov- 



8o The Siege in Peking 

emment. They resolved to request an exten- 
sion of time, or at least to gain time by parleying 
over the conditions until our expected relief 
should arrive. With this view they agreed to go 
separately to the Yamen to make remonstrance 
against the harsh treatment implied in this ulti- 
matum. 

On the i8th two Boxers, mounted in a cart, had 
ostentatiously paraded the street, by way of chal- 
lenge, as heralds were wont to do in feudal times. 
As they passed the German legation the Min- 
ister ordered them to be arrested. One made his 
escape ; the other was captured and brought 
round to the U. S. legation. On consultation it 
was decided to keep him a prisoner, and he was 
led away, the Baron giving him a sound beating 
with his heavy cane. 

On the morning of the 20th Baron Ketteler 
set out for the Yamen, in pursuance of this 
arrangement. No sooner had he reached a 
great street than he was shot in the back, falling 
dead immediately. His secretary was at the 
same time wounded, but succeeded in escaping 
to a mission hospital, whence, after his blood was 
stanched, he was carried back to his legation. 

The news produced a panic in all the legations. 
CThey considered that the projected massacre had 




o ^ 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 8l 

begun, and, as the British legation alone was re- 
garded as capable of defence, to that they fell 
back, accompanied by all their nationals. Sir 
Claude MacDonald had generously placed its 
resources at the disposal of his colleagues. 

Had the enemy followed up their advantage 
and poured into the outlying legations (aban- 
doned as they were) they might have reduced 
them to ashes, or, pursuing us into that of Great 
Britain, they might have overpowered us in the 
midst of panic and confusion. Happily they 
were held in awe by their opinion of foreign 
prowess, and carefully abstained at that time 
from coming to close quarters. In the course of 
the day, it was found that the legations had not 
been invaded by the enemy, and they were reoc- 
cupied by their proper guards with the exception 
of the Belgian, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian, 
which lay beyond the line of defence, and were, 
speedily destroyed by fire. 

Baron Ketteler's life was in no unimportant 
sense a ransom for many, but his was not the 
only foreign life offered up that day. In the af- 
ternoon Professor Jfemes, of the Imperial Uni- 
versity, while returning from the fu of a Mon- 
gol prince on the opposite side of the canal, was 
shot dead in crossing the bridge. He, too, sac- 



82 The Siege in Peking 

rificed his life in a noble cause; for he, along 
with Dr. Morrison, of the London Times, had 
there made arrangements for the shelter of native 
Christians. 

That very evening, and thenceforward every 
day, we were fired on by our besiegers. The 
fusillades were particularly fierce when a thun- 
derstorm occurred, the Chinese seeming to re- 
gard heaven's artillery as coming to supplement 
the use of their own weapons. 

The most dangerous of their attacks were, 
however, made with the firebrand. Numer- 
ous buildings beyond our outer wall were suc- 
cessively fired for no other object than to burn 
us out. Of these the principal was the magnifi- 
cent palace of the Hanlin Academy, containing 
the most costly library in the Chinese Empire. 
That library only served the ruthless vandals for 
"the purpose of kindling a conflagration, and 
manuscripts of priceless value, dating back five or 
six centuries, were consumed by the flames or 
trodden under foot. By almost superhuman ef- 
fort the flames were subdued and the enemy 
driven back. That building henceforward be- 
came a bloody battle-ground between the con- 
lending forces, which at times approached so 
near each other that the enemy assailed us by 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 83 

throwing kerosene oil, and our people replied 
with oil of vitriol in hand-to-hand encounters. 

Early in this part of the siege a struggle oc- 
curred which more than any other was the pivot 
of our destiny. This was on the wall. It had 
been held by Chinese soldiers, but, dominating 
all the legations, had heavy artillery been there 
planted, defence would have been impossible. 
The Chinese were driven back from a portion of 
it by a combined force of Americans and Ger- 
mans; but, returning in greater numbers, they; 
gradually forced our troops to abandon their po- 
sition. The situation appeared desperate. The 
Germans being insufficient in number to defend 
their own legation, a combined force of Ameri- 
cans, British, and Russians, amounting to about 
sixty men, was organized under the lead of Cap- 
tain Myers, of the United States marines. 

Before the onslaught which was to decide our 
(destiny Captain Myers pronounced a remarkable 
harangue. Pointing to the British legation, 
" My men," he said, " yonder are four hundred 
women and children whose lives are dependent 
upon our success. If we fail, they perish, and 
we perish also. When I say go, then go." The 
Americans and English must have been moved 
beyond expression by this appeal. The Rus- 



84 The Siege in Peking 

sians, too, though they knew not a word of his 
speech, fully comprehended the meaning of his 
gesture. They, as well as the others, were will- 
ing to offer their Hfe's blood for the success of 
this forlorn hope. 

The Chinese, taken by surprise, were driven 
from their barricades, and a large space fronting 
the legations remained in possession of our 
foreign guards. But the victory cost us dear, 
for, besides several others killed and wounded, 
the gallant leader who deserves to be regarded 
as one of the heroes of the siege fell wounded to 
khe ground. Thenceforward he was unable to 
take that share in our defence for which his soul 
thirsted. 

Within the legation all was bustle and activity. 
The marines, reinforced by a volunteer corps of 
a hundred or more, were occupying commanding 
points on the legation walls, or making sorties 
from the legation gates — sometimes to capture a 
gun which threatened to breach our defences, 
sometimes to disperse a force that was gather- 
ing for an assault. Night and day this went on, 
week after week, but not without loss. Several 
of the leaders of these sorties fell in not abor- 
tive attempts, and many of their soldiers were 
wounded. Our fortifications were strengthened 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 85 

partly by sand-bags that were made to the num- 
ber of many thousands by the ladies, who inces- 
santly plied the sewing-machine — an instrument 
which on that occasion proved to be no less ef- 
fective than our machine-guns. 

Much work was also done in the way of dig- 
ging trenches to countermine the operations of 
the enemy. Most of this was superintended with 
great skill by missionaries, whose merit has 
been frankly acknowledged by diplomatists and 
generals. It was carried out by the bone and 
muscle of native Christians. With regard to 
these unhappy refugees, who were destitute of 
home and livelihood, it has also been acknowl- 
edged that without their aid the defence would 
have been impossible. 

Surely, in the final settlement, the losses of the 
native Christians should not be left out of view, 
nor should precautions be neglected to secure 
their safety in the future. 

For eight long weeks we were sickened by 
hope deferred. The forces of our defenders were 
weakened by daily losses. Our store of provi- 
sions was running low. Had the rescue been 
delayed another fortnight we must have suffered 
the fate of Cawnpore, rather than the fortune of 
Lucknow. We had eaten up all our horses and 



86 The Siege in Peking 

mules, to the number of eighty ! Only three or 
four remained, affording meat for not more than 
two days. Our meal barrels had also reached 
the bottom, and unhappily the widow's cruse of 
oil was not within our reach. Our clothing even 
(we had many of us no change of raiment) was 
worn to shreds, and it became unfashionable to 
appear with a clean shirt. 

This reminded me of a few lines from a well- 
known poet, referring to another city, which I 
had written in my note-book on my first visit to 
Peking, forty-one years ago. (They are a photo- 
graph of the city as it then was. And now its 
condition is tenfold worse.) 

" Whoso entereth within this town 

Which sheening far celestial seems to be, 
Disconsolate will wander up and down 

'Mid many things unsightly to strange e'e. 
For hut and palace show like filthily ; 

The dingy denizens are reared in dirt ; 
Nor personage of high or low degree, 

Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt." 

(Childe Harold.) 

If asked how we spent our time, I answer, 
there was no time for amusement, and no un- 
seemly frivolity. Fear and anxiety dwelt in 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 87 

every bosom, but we took care that they should 
not show themselves upon our faces. Especially 
did our brave women strive to look cheerful in 
order to strengthen the arms of their defenders. 
In the midst of the fiercest attacks, when rifle- 
shots were accompanied by bursting bombs, only 
one gave way to hysteric shrieks (she was not 
American) ; and it may be added, by way of off- 
set, that one man, a Norwegian, went stark mad. 

The place was overcrowded, and such was the 
want of room that forty or fifty from the Roman 
Catholic missions were domiciled in an open 
pavilion, where some of them were wounded by 
stray shots. Of Protestant missionaries, forty- 
three were lodged in the legation chapel. The 
chapel was employed, I need hardly say, more 
like a hotel than a meeting-house. There was 
no time for praying or singing. Sunday was 
as busily devoted to fighting as week days, nor 
did I once hear of a prayer-meeting. Yet never 
was there more heartfelt praying done than dur- 
ing this trying period. 

Within the British Legation I was transferred 
from the table of Mrs. Squiers to that of Mrs. 
Conger, both families occupying only a part of 
the small house of the legation doctor. Had I 
been her brother I could not have been treated 



88 The Siege in Peking 

with more affectionate kindness than I received 
at her hands and those of the Minister. Calm, 
resolute, hopeful, and, as Pope says, " Mistress of 
herself, though China fall,"' a devout Christian, 
too, though tinged with the idealism of Bishop 
Berkeley, Mrs. Conger is one of the most admir- 
able women it has been my privilege to know. I 
wished many a time that, like her, I could look on 
all those events as nothing more than a horrid 
nightmare, merely conjured up by a distempered 
imagination. The round shot by which our walls 
were pierced was too tangible to be resolved into 
fanciful ideas. The United States has had in 
Peking no worthier representative than Major 
Conger. A soldier through all the War of Seces- 
sion, he met this outbreak with a fortitude and 
good sense pre-eminently conspicuous. A man 
of broad sympathies and deep insight into Chi- 
nese life and character (especially after the ex- 
perience of the siege), it is well that he has been 
intrusted in a large measure with the negotia- 
tions looking to a final settlement. 

Some incidents of the siege may here be in- 
troduced. 

First among them was the fall of the British 
flag, not in the order of time, but in the impres- 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 89 

sion which it made upon our minds. Charged 
with the duty of inspecting the passes of Chinese 
coming and going between the legations, my 
post was at the gate over which it waved so 
proudly (and there, through the whole siege, I 
passed my days from 5 a.m. until 8 or 9 p.m.). 
Never did it wave more proudly than during 
those days when, beneath its ample folds, it gave 
asylum to the ministers of eleven legations and 
to people of fourteen nationalities. Never was 
the pre-eminent position of Great Britain more 
conspicuous — a position in keeping with her his- 
tory in the opening of China, and the paramount 
influence which she has exerted on the com- 
merce and politics of that empire. One day, in 
the early morning, down came the flag, the staff 
having been shot away. We had observed that 
for several days it had been made a target for the 
enemy. The Chinese seem to take as reality 
what to us is no more than poetry in speaking of 
the protection of a flag. With them the flag is 
supposed to be accompanied by a guardian spirit. 
In this case they would call it the tutelar genius 
of the British Empire. 

Before going into battle they ofifer a sacrifice 
to their own banner. If they are able to seize, or 
in any; .way destroy, the banner, of their enemy. 



90 The Siege in Peking 

they consider the battle as more than half gained. 
To us the fall of the flag had the effect of ill-omen. 
It was not replaced for a number of days, and 
the aspect of the gate-tower, deprived of its 
glorious crest, was certainly depressing. When 
replaced it was not exalted to its former height 
— the flag-mast being purposely shortened in 
some degree to guard against a repetition of the 
misfortune. 

On one of the first days of my service at the 
gate-house a marine belonging to the guard 
there stationed was shot down, and died instantly. 
Where the shot came from it was not easy to 
determine, but on all sides, at no great distance, 
were trees and high buildings in which it was 
possible for sharpshooters to conceal themselves. 
So much, indeed, were we apprehensive of un- 
seen messengers of death that at night we seldom 
lighted a lamp, taking our dinner before night- 
fall, and when lamps required to be lighted they 
were always extinguished as soon as possible, not 
to attract the aim of hidden marksmen who might 
at night occupy commanding positions which 
would be too dangerous for them during the day. 
Let it not be supposed that, because the Chinese 
are backward in the military art, they were de- 
ficient either in weapons of precision or in the 



Siege of the Legations in Peking gi 

skill to use them. Let the fate of our captains 
and their men be the answer. 

One British captain, Halliday, was grievously 
wounded in a sortie. His successor, Captain 
Strouts, was shot dead in crossing the canal in 
front of our gate. Captain Wray was shot in 
the head, but not killed, in attempting to capture 
a gun. The captain of French marines was 
killed. He had complained, a few weeks earlier, 
that in Peking he had nothing to do and that the 
marines had been summoned on a false alarm. 
The wound of Captain Myers (and how he got it) 
has already been mentioned. 

The sad procession closes with Captain Riley, 
of the United States Navy, who in the hour of 
occupation, while playing his artillery on the 
palace gates, fell a victim to a sharpshooter. It 
would seem, indeed, as if those sharpshooters, as 
in other lands, knew how to pick ofif the officers 
at the head of their troops, yet so numerous were 
the casualties among our men as to show that 
their attention was not confined to officers. 

As rifle-shots were parried by our high walls, 
our chief danger was from cannon. With these 
the enemy appeared to be insufficiently provided, 
but gradually one after another opened its Cer- 
berean mouth until big guns and little guns were 



92 The Siege in Peking 

barking at us on all sides. The most dangerous 
gun was that of which I have spoken as aimed 
at our wall from the distance of a few yards. The 
expedition for its capture was not successful in 
accomplishing that object, yet so frightened were 
the Chinese soldiers by the daring of that attack 
that they thought fit to remove the precious 
piece of artillery to a safer distance, and its roar 
was no more heard. 

Guns of heavy calibre were erected on the 
northeast of the Fu, which played havoc with the 
French and German legations, and almost daily 
kept us awake by the explosion of shells over 
our heads. Guns of less weight were placed on 
an angle of the Imperial City wall, close to the 
British legation. They commanded both sides 
of the canal, and threatened to demolish a flimsy 
fort hastily thrown up for the protection of our 
gate. 

Hitherto we had nothing with which to re- 
spond larger than a machine-gun. The want of 
heavier metal was deeply felt, and one of our 
marines, Mitchell by name, aided by an ingenious 
Welshman named Thomas, undertook to con- 
struct a cannon out of a brass pump — putting 
two pieces together and wrapping them with 
steel wire somewhat as Milton represents the 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 93 

devils as doing in the construction of a cannon 
out of a hollow pine. Before it was completed, 
however, Sir Claude forbade its use, saying that 
to keep the pump to meet a possible conflagra- 
tion was of far more vital importance. 

Luckily, while this work was going on, the 
gunners were informed by a Chinese that in an 
old junk-shop within our lines they had discov- 
ered an iron cannon of considerable size. It was 
brought in, and so good was it that they resolved 
immediately to rig it up for use. Examination 
proved it to be Chinese, though at first it was 
supposed to be of English make. 

Mounted on an Italian gun-carriage, and pro- 
vided with Russian bomb-shells, it became useful 
to us and formidable to our enemies. The Rus- 
sians, though bringing ammunition, had forgot- 
ten their gun. The Italians, I presume, had 
found theirs too heavy, and brought the empty 
carriage. Put together and served by American 
and British gunners it was not unfitly christened 
the International. It led the way in many a 
sortie, prostrating barricades, and frightening 
the enemy by its terrible thunder. Not, how- 
ever, being a breech-loader, and the ammuni- 
tion being ill-adapted, it was inconvenient to 
handle. 



94 The Siege in Peking 

In one of these sorties, Mitchell, the brave gun- 
ner, who seemed to love it as if it had been his 
sweetheart, had his arm shattered. 

The first shells that began to rain upon us led 
us to apprehend a heavier shower, and to con- 
trive umbrellas for our protection. These so- 
called " bomb-proofs " were in reality excava- 
tions made in the ground in front of the building 
occupied by each legation. They were barely * 
large enough for the women and children: the 
men were expected to stand outside to fight the 
enemy. They were covered over with heavy 
beams, and these again with a stratum of earth 
and sand-bags. No cavern in a hillside could 
look more gloomy or forbidding. The first rain 
(not of shot or shell) filled them with water, and 
we said to our ladies that, in order to avail them- 
selves of these laboriously constructed bomb- 
proofs, they would have to put on their bathing- 
suits. 

The ladies were not timid, and were not there- 
fore in haste to try the virtues of a mud-bath. To 
some of them, the bursting of shells and crack- 
ling of small arms, if not music, was yet not 
without a stimulating effect. On the first shots 
Miss Conger, who was sufifering from nervous 
prostration, threw herself into her father's arms 



Siege of the Legations in Peking g^ 

and wept convulsively. At the next attack she 
bore the ordeal with perfect composure. As the 
siege went on, the daily fusillades appeared to 
act upon her nerves like a necessary tonic. She 
grew stronger from day to day, and at the end 
of the siege she seemed to have obtained a com- 
plete cure, a thing which she had sought in vain 
by an ocean voyage. 

In the Conger family were three ladies from 
Chicago, who, having their visit cut short by the 
outbreak, on going to the railway station found 
the road broken up, and returned to have their 
visit prolonged by the siege. Mrs. Woodward 
went about everywhere, even in places of danger, 
armed with her camera, but her post of constant 
service was in the hospital, where our wounded 
boys affectionately called her by the name of 
" Mamma." Many other ladies, professional 
and unprofessional, worked hard to nurse those 
brave fellows back to life. Her handsome 
young daughter, if she rendered any service be- 
sides the sewing of sand-bags, did it chiefly by 
inspiring certain young men to heroic deeds. . 
The mother having expressed to me a wish to 
have a Boxer's rifle for her museum, I whispered 
in the ear of young Bismarck, who the next day 
brought the desired weapon, and, laying it at her 



96 The Siege in Peking 

feet, said, " This is the spoil of an enemy whom 
I shot this morning."* 

The other lady. Miss Payen, was a skilful 
painter in water-colors, and her elegant art, 
though slower than the camera, has no doubt 
contributed to preserve memorials of the siege 
not a few. 

These three ladies were a powerful reinforce- 
ment to the three ladies of the Conger family, 
and the six attracted not merely young men, but 
had frequent visits from such old men as Sir 
Robert Hart and the Spanish Minister, Mr. Col- 
ogan, a hidalgo of Irish extraction. 

No man kept up his spirits better than Sir 
Robert, who was always cheerful, and his con- 
versation sparkled with humor, notwithstanding 
the Customs head-quarters and Imperial post- 
offices, erected and organized by him as the vis- 
ible fruit of forty years of service, had all been 
laid in ashes. On arriving in the legation he 
said to me, " Dr. Martin, I have no other clothes 
than those you see me standing in." 

As we looked each other in the face, we could 

* It would be unfair to overlook Miss Pierce, a fair niece of 
the Congers, under whose inspiration Dhuysberg, a young 
Dutchman, performed more than one exploit. In a word, 
all our men were doubly brave because they had our women 
to encourage them. 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 97 

not help blushing for shame at the thought that 
our life-long services had been so little valued. 
The man v^ho had nursed their Customs revenue 
from three to thirty millions, the Chinese were 
trying to butcher; while from my thirty years' 
teaching of international law they had learned 
that the lives of Ambassadors were not to be held 
sacred ! 

He was accompanied in this place of refuge by 
Mr. Bredon, Assistant Inspector-General, and all 
the Customs staff, as well as by the professors in 
the Tungwuen College, and I was accompanied 
by seven of the professors in the Imperial Uni- 
versity — one having fallen a martyr to his good 
works. All these co-operated with the mission- 
aries, and others, in discharging various duties, 
the humblest of which was made honorable by 
the circumstances of the siege. 

Some spent their days in digging trenches, 
others inspected latrines in the interest of sani- 
tation. One of our professors superintended the 
butchery of horses and the distribution of horse 
meat, while a Commissioner of Customs presided 
over the operations of a Chinese laundry. 

In the way of food-supply the greatest service 
was rendered by a Swiss named Chamot. Only 
an innkeeper, his name will be recorded on the 



98 The Siege in Peking 

roll of fame, and the French Minister proposes to 
procure for him the cordon of the Legion of 
Honor. To us he was Corvus Elics, the raven of 
the prophet Elijah, bringing us bread morning 
and evening, but (what a pity !) no meat. He 
had newly opened a hotel, which, aided by his 
brave wife, who carried a rifle and used it with 
effect, he fortified and defended. He opened a 
flour-mill for the occasion, and kept his bakery 
running at high speed to supply bread (sour and 
coarse it was), barely sufficient for a thousand 
mouths. As he crossed the bridge, often was he 
fired on, his bread-cart was pierced by many bul- 
lets, and once his flag was shot away. 

I recall a notable expedition in which Chamot 
and his bright young wife bore a conspicuous 
part. After the burning of the churches several 
parties were sent out to bring in the surviving 
Christians. One of these parties was accom- 
panied by Chamot and his wife — she discharging 
the full duty of an armed soldier. 

Another of these parties proceeding to the Nan 
Tang southern cathedral was accompanied by 
Dr. Morrison, a man equally skilled with gun or 
pen, and no less brave in the use of the latter. 
His opinions are worth a broadside of cannon. 

On this occasion he went at the instance of 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 99 

Mrs. Squiers, and was accompanied by Professor 
James, who acted as interpreter. Mrs. Squiers 
is a woman of large heart and long purse, whose 
feet were never weary in looking out the abodes 
of the poor and needy. 

When this last company of refugees came in 
I saw them in the street before they proceeded to 
the Fu. Never had I witnessed such a heart- 
moving spectacle. Two hundred of the forlorn- 
est objects I ever beheld had been raked up from 
the ashes of their dwellings. Starving and 
weary, they seemed scarcely able to stand. They 
were old and young, men and women, all appar- 
ently ready to perish. One woman was the 
mother of Ching Chang, a student of mine, for- 
mer Minister to France. She, like the others, 
was on foot, and equally destitute of all things. 
Her family has been Christian for many gen- 
erations. 

The object most striking to the eye was a man 
of fifty bearing on his shoulders his mother, a 
white-haired woman of threescore and ten. 

In the Fu were domiciled near two thousand 
of such fugitives, of whom four or five hundred 
were Protestant. The latter were subsequently 
removed to other quarters. 

The Fu was, as I have said, defended by 
LcfC. 



lOO The Siege in Peking 

Austrians, French, Itahans, and especially by 
the Japanese, at the cost of much bloodshed, 
though assailed by the heaviest guns and the 
fiercest forces of the enemy. Its importance 
came from its covering the approach not only to 
the four legations — Spanish, Japanese, German, 
and French — beyond the river it also commanded 
the canal front of the British legation. To this 
(in part at least) our Christians owed the protec- 
tion of their asylum. 

In these engagements more than half the 
Japanese, under the lead of Colonel Shiba, were 
killed or wounded, and many of the other na- 
tionalities. Daily some were brought through 
the gate only to die in the hospital. Often have 
I saluted bright young soldiers as they passed 
out, and seen them return in a few hours dead, 
dying, or maimed for life. 

Never had I so vivid an impression of the van- 
ity of human life. 

Oh, Great Eternity, 

Our little life is but a gust 
Which bends the branches of thy tree, 

And trails its blossoms in the dust. 

Yet never was the thought of death less pleas- 
ant to my mind — not that I feared to die, but 



Siege of the Legations in Peking loi 

that I abhorred the thought of perishing in an 
indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and 
children. My feehng was like that of the weary 
woodcutter who, laying down his load, exclaimed 
with a sigh, " Oh, Death, when wilt thou come ? " 

Instantly the Angel of Death appeared before 
him, asking: " You called me. Why ? " 

Frightened by the aspect of the grizzly terror 
the woodman answered, " Only to help me take 
up my burden." 

So I, though over threescore and ten, was per- 
suaded by the same apparition to bear my bur- 
dens a little longer. 

Within our walls but few were killed or 
wounded by shot or shell. The health of the 
imprisoned community was remarkably good, 
perhaps the better because they had to live on 
low diet. The only deaths from disease were 
those of small children, who, deprived of milk 
and exposed to heat, withered away like flowers ; 
no less than six of them within a few short weeks 
filling infant graves. 

Ordinarily in Peking the heat of summer is 
unendurable, and every foreigner escapes to the 
mountains or the sea. On this occasion 

** God tempered the wind to the shorn lamb," 



102 The Siege in Peking 

The heat was not excessive for a single day, 
yet what Holmes calls " Intramural aestivation " 
was far from agreeable. Our experience was 
true to the picture given in that amusing skit : 

" His ardent front, the cive anheling wipes 
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes," 

We all lost flesh from perspiration and want 
of food — some ten, some twenty, some fifty 
pounds. A Frenchman, apparently to make my 
apprehension more clear than by using the metric 
system, drew out his coat to exhibit the yawning 
vacancy which ought to have been filled by a 
well-lined stomach. 

After the siege not a few strong men were 
brought down by fevers produced no doubt by 
the privations of that trying time. 

My post was a vantage-ground for observa- 
tion, and one of the deepest impressions made 
upon me was by seeing men of all nationalities 
passing to and fro co-operating for the common 
weal. It presented a foretaste of that union 
which, we trust, may be realized in the coming 
millennium, with this difference, that then the 
nations shall " learn war no more." The Hues of 
creed and nationality appeared to be obliterated. 
'An orthodox Russian priest filled sand-bags or 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 103 

dug trenches side by side with a Roman Catholic 
or Protestant missionary. Often did I converse 
with the CathoHc missionaries of France, and I 
felt myself irresistibly drawn to them by their 
spirituaHty and devotion. 

Having heard of the approach of the army of 
relief, we became more cheerful. Two ladies 
asked for my autograph, to be inserted in "A 
Cycle of Cathay," and I wrote " Juvabit memi- 
nisse " (It will be pleasant to remember). 

The next day, the French Minister, who was 
noted for the gloomy view he had always taken 
of the situation, came to the gate and said to me, 
" Eh bien, nous sortirons d'ici " (We shall get 
out of this). " Juvabit meminisse " — alluding to 
the inscription. 

That we were able to hold out was, perhaps, in 
some degree due to divided counsels amongst 
our enemies ; for we learned, with deep sorrow, 
from the Court Gazette, which had been surrep- 
titiously brought in, that four ministers in the 
Tsung Li Yamen had been executed by order of 
the Empress Dowager. We mourned them as 
our friends, who had employed their influence as 
far as possible in our favor. Of this I feel as- 
sured, for one of them was the High Commis- 
sioner for Education, who had the supervision of 



104 The Siege in Peking 

our new university. Two others were directors 
of the Tungwen College, the diplomatic school 
of which I was president for so long a time, and 
I had come to hold them in the highest estima- 
tion. One of them had sent three of his sons to 
be under my instruction in the new university. 

Prince Ching undoubtedly exerted a powerful, 
though secret, influence in our favor. Com- 
manding, as he did, the City Guard, a Manchu 
force of fifty thousand men, had he chosen to 
let them loose upon us all at once, we must 
have been inevitably overwhelmed. Though he 
lacked the courage to remonstrate with the tyrant 
Empress, he had the power and the tact to re- 
strain the fury of his soldiery. 

One of our greatest privations was the want 
of newspapers. Not merely were we without in- 
telligence from the great world beyond the sea, 
we were for the most part in absolute ignorance 
as to what was going on outside of our own walls. 
From time to time we sought to remedy this state 
of things by endeavoring in one way or another 
to get a glimpse, by means of messengers let 
down at night, as Paul was in a basket from the 
wall of Damascus, or by purchasing intelligence 
from our enemies. 

In this last way Colonel Shiba considered him- 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 105 

self peculiarly fortunate in finding a man who 
gave him daily intelligence of the approach of 
our relief. One day they had reached Lang 
Fang ; another, they had got to Chang Kia Wan, 
and, after passing five or six stations, it seemed 
as if they were just about to reach Peking, when 
he felt it necessary to turn them about and make 
them fall back a stage or two in order to keep 
up the flow of remuneration. He was paid some 
thirty dollars a day for this cheering news. 
Needless to say that for the whole of it he had 
drawn on his imagination. 

One of our messengers who was most success- 
ful, having succeeded in the guise of a blind beg- 
gar in reaching Tien Tsin and bringing back 
most encouraging letters, was a lad of sixteen. 
Though not a Christian, he had begged to be 
taken under the protection of a Christian mis- 
sion, and nobly did he reward their kindness by 
his intrepidity. Having sewed the letters be- 
tween the soles of his shoe he was three times 
searched without discovery. 

On August 14th, after midnight, a sentry burst 
into our sleeping-room, calling aloud : 

" They are coming ! " 

The Minister and myself arose and rushed out 
into the open air, not requiring time to put on 



lo6 The Siege in Peking 

our clothes, for we had never put them off. True 
enough, we heard the playing of machine-guns 
on the outside of the city. Never was music so 
sweet. We awakened the ladies. They also lis- 
tened. The news spread from one building to 
another, until all were under the open sky listen- 
ing to the playing of those guns, as the women at 
Lucknow listened to the bagpipes of Havelock's 
Highlanders. Overwhelmed with joy, some im- 
pulsive ladies threw themselves on each other's 
necks and wept aloud. 

The next morning, at ten o'clock, the great 
gates of the legation were thrown open, and in 
came a company of mounted Sihks, perhaps the 
finest cavalry I ever beheld, and with their long 
spears and high turbans they appeared the hand- 
somest men on whom my eyes had ever rested. 
So, perhaps, by the magnifying effect of time 
and circumstance, they appeared to all of us as 
the vanguard of the army of relief. They had 
come in through the water-gate, by which the 
passage would have been impossible but for the 
occupation of the wall by our marines. 

The rest of our troops, of various nationalities, 
entered later in the day by the great front gate, 
the key of which Mr. Squiers, acting as Chief 
of Staff to Sir Claude MacDonald, had captured 



Siege of the Legations in Peking 107 

from the flying enemy. He, too, is one of the 
heroes of the siege. Many others there are whose 
names I cannot here mention, though they de- 
serve to be recorded indeHbly on the roll of 
fame. 

Deeply sensible of the difficulties attending 
the march on Peking, and knowing, as I did not 
then, the cost in precious lives which that expe- 
dition for our rescue required, I have no words 
sufficient to express my admiration or my grati- 
tude. Let me close by the expression of one 
wish, namely : that those forces will not be with- 
drawn until full security is obtained against the 
recurrence of a similar outburst of pagan fe- 
rocity. 

The day following we did not forget to ex- 
press our thanks to a Higher Power ; meeting in 
the open air, where, after the reading of Te 
Tfeum Laudamus by the British chaplain. Dr. 
Arthur Smith pronounced a discourse, in which 
he pointed out ten particulars showing the fin- 
ger of God in our rescue. He might have ex- 
tended them to a hundred. 



CHAPTER VI 

ADDITIONAL INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE 

A few more incidents which appear to be worth 
recording are, for obvious reasons, here given in 
a separate chapter. 

Among the Roman Catholic missionaries, one 
white-haired father especially attracted my at- 
tention. I had seen him walking on the bank 
of the canal amidst a shower of bullets, appar- 
ently courting death, yet in words he expressed 
the hope of rescue. 

The morning of our deliverance he grasped 
my hand, and, looking up with streaming eyes, 
exclaimed : " Te Deum, Te Deum, Laudamus." 
Setting off alone without escort to carry the 
good news to the Bishop at the northern cathe- 
dral, he was shot dead en route by some enemy 
in ambush. Mr. Knobel, the Netherlands Min- 
ister, was wounded in the same way the day after 
the siege was raised, while standing on a bridge 
near the legation. 

io8 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 109 

In the batch of Peking Gazettes referred to in 
the former chapter as brought in surreptitiously, 
there were several decrees of considerable inter- 
est. One of them referred to the murder of the 
Japanese ChanceHer on the nth of June. He 
had gone to the railway station in the hope of 
getting news of Seymour's relief column. He 
was there set upon by soldiers and Boxers com- 
bined, dragged from his cart, and slain. This 
being nearly a week prior to the capture of the 
forts, the Empress Dowager, wishing still to 
shun responsibility, issued the following decree : 

" On hearing this intelligence we were exceed- 
ingly grieved. Officials of a neighboring nation 
stationed in Peking ought to be protected in 
every possible way. Now, especially, should 
extra care be taken to prevent attacks upon them, 
when desperate characters swarm on every side. 
We have repeatedly commanded the various 
local officials to concert measures for their pro- 
tection, and yet, in spite of our orders, we hear 
of the murder of the ChanceHer of the Japanese 
legation here in the capital of the empire. 

" Our civil and military officers had been 
anxiously clearing their districts of bad charac- 
ters. We now order all the Yamens concerned 
to set a limit of time for the arrest of these crim- 
inals, that they may suffer the extreme penalty 



no The Siege in Peking 

A colored print, extensively circulated in 
Shanghai and elsewhere, depicts this event with 
a view to firing the loyal heart, representing the 
murder not as the act of a mob, but as an execu- 
tion by court martial, with Boxers drawn up in 
one file and soldiers in another; the whole pre- 
sided over by General Sung, a high commander 
of the Imperial forces. 

On June 21st, two days after the declaration of 
war, the Dowager sent forth a manifesto, in the 
name of the Emperor, for the purpose of announc- 
ing her action and justifying it to her subjects : 

" Ever since the foundation of the dynasty, 
foreigners coming to China have been kindly 
treated. In the reign of Tao Kwang and Hien 
Fung they were allowed to trade, and to propa- 
gate their religion. At first they were amenable 
to Chinese control, but for the past thirty years 
they have taken advantage of our forbearance to 
encroach on our territory, to trample on the 
Chinese people, and to absorb the wealth of the 
empire. Every concession made only serves to 
increase their insolence. They oppress our 
peaceful subjects, and insult the gods and sages, 
exciting burning indignation among the people. 

" Hence the burning of chapels and the slaugh- 
ter of converts by the patriotic braves. (Scil. 
Boxers.) 

" The throne was anxious to avoid war, and 



Additional Incidents of the Siege ill 

issued edicts enjoining protection of legations 
and pity toward converts, declaring Boxers and 
converts to be equally the children of the state. 
This decree we issued in hope of removing the 
old feud between our people and the native 
Christians. Extreme kindness was shown to the 
strangers from afar, but these people knew no 
gratitude, and increased their encroachments. 

" A despatch was yesterday sent by them call- 
ing upon us to deliver up the Taku forts into 
their keeping. Otherwise they would be taken 
by force. These threats are a sample of their ag- 
gressive disposition in all matters relating to 
international intercourse. We have never been 
wanting in courtesy, but they, while styling them- 
selves civilized states, have acted without regard 
for right, relying solely on their military prowess. 
We have now reigned nearly thirty years, and 
have treated the people as our children, while the 
people have honored us as their deity. In the 
midst of our reign we have been the recipient of 
the gracious favor of the Empress Dowager. 
Furthermore, our ancestors have come to our aid. 
The gods have answered our call, and never has 
there been so universal a manifestation of loyalty 
and patriotism, 

" With tears have we announced in our an- 
cestral shrines the outbreak of war. Better it is 
to do our utmost and enter on the struggle than 
to seek self-preservation involving eternal dis- 
grace. All our officials, high and low, are of one 



112 The Siege in Peking 

mind. There have also assembled, without of- 
ficial summons, several hundred thousands of 
patriotic soldiers (Boxers). Even children carry 
spears in the defence of their country. 

" Our trust is in heaven's justice ! They de- 
pend on craft and violence. Not to speak of the 
righteousness of our cause, our Provinces num- 
ber more than twenty, our people over four hun- 
dred millions. Surely it will not be difficult to 
vindicate the dignity of our country," etc., etc. 

The document concludes by promising re- 
wards to those who distinguish themselves in 
battle, or subscribe funds, and threatening pun- 
ishment to those who show cowardice or act with 
disloyalty. 

On June 24th the Board of Revenue is ordered 
to give Kang Yi two hundred bags of rice as pro- 
vision for general distribution among the Boxers. 

A decree of the same date appoints one of the 
princes to be the official head of the Boxer or- 
ganization. It says: 

" Our people included In the Boxer organiza- 
tion are scattered all over the regions around the 
metropolis and Tien Tsin. It is right and proper 
that they should have a Superintendent placed 
over them. We therefore appoint Prince 
Chuang (a first cousin of the Emperor) and the 
Grand Secretary, Kang Yi, to be in general com- 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 113 

mand of the said society. We also order Briga- 
dier-Generals Ying Nien and Tsai Lan to act in 
co-operation with them. 

" All the members of the Boxer Society are 
exerting their utmost energy, and the Imperial 
family must not fall behind in its efforts to take 
revenge upon our enemies." 

Nothing could show more distinctly the com- 
plicity of the government in the Boxer move- 
ment — and its responsibility for the outrages per- 
petrated by the Boxers — than these documents. 
Yet our admirals, in demanding the surrender of 
the forts, took care to announce their purpose as 
that of coming to the aid of the government 
against the Boxers ! 

About the middle of July a white flag, or 
rather a white sheet of paper, was displayed on 
the upper bridge, announcing to us, in large let- 
ters visible with the aid of a telescope, that " we 
have received orders to protect the Foreign Min- 
isters." The same day, a small supply of mel- 
ons, vegetables, and flour were sent in to us, ac- 
companied by overtures for an armistice, and 
proposing that Princes Tuan and Ching should 
be admitted to an interview. The melons and 
fruits were eaten with gusto, but the flour was 
shunned as probably not conducive to health. 



114 The Siege In Peking 

The proposed meeting with the Princes was con- 
ceded, though regarded with suspicion, on the 
principle, 

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. 

But when the time came, they failed to appear, 
excusing themselves on the ground that we had 
not observed the armistice, and had killed a vast 
number of their people. The fact is that, the 
very day on which they showed the decree or- 
dering protection for the Ministers, they fired on 
■^ us in the evening, and through the night they 
i were seen preparing for a general assault, which 
our people averted by a successful sortie. 

For a few days there was a slight relaxation 
in the vigor of attack, and something like Incipi- 
ent intercourse began to show itself. Soldiers 
in the opposing ranks approached and conversed 
with each other. A young Frenchman, who had 
been captured, was well treated by the enemy, 
and, what he much appreciated, well fed. A de- 
serter from our ranks was, along with the 
young Frenchman, returned to us with compli- 
ments. 
The ground of these courtesies we now know 
\ to have been the alarm created by the capture of 
Tien Tsin. Immediately after that event, which 



Additional Incidents of the Siege ii^ 

occurred on the 14th of July, LI Hung Chang 
was appointed Plenipotentiary to negotiate by 
cable for a cessation of hostilities. That meant 
an effort to stop the advance on Peking. 

It was during this time that the good offices of 
our Government, as well as those of the Courts of 
Europe and Japan, were sohcited by China. The 
Secretary of State replied by demanding a com- 
munication from Minister Conger as a condition 
indispensable to compliance with that request. 
Our Minister was accordingly permitted to send t^ 
a despatch in cipher, which, so far from tending 
to stop the advance of the army of relief, set forth 
our extreme peril, and had a mighty influence 
in quickening their movements. 

Toward the end of the siege the daily and 
nightly attacks upon us were renewed with in- 
creasing fury — doubtless because their efforts 
to stop the advance had proved abortive. 

The deserter above referred to was a Nor- j 
wegian missionary, Nestigard. His mind had 
never been well balanced, and he is the man of 
whom we have spoken as going stark mad. 
Placed under surveillance he resented restraint, 
and in the night made his escape. In a search- 
ing examination at the head-quarters of Yung 
Lu, he no doubt revealed all he knew about our 



Il6 The Siege in Peking 

situation: the small number of ponies we had 
left, the diminution of our other stores, and the 
imperfection of our means of defence. He con- 
fessed to having told the enemy that the reason 
why they killed so few within our enclosure was 
because they aimed too high. It was the gen- 
eral opinion that the wretch ought to be shot. 
Sir Claude MacDonald, however, spared him on 
account of his insanity, and from that day it took 
the time of seven men to guard him ! 
/ During the first stage of the siege I noticed 
a handsome young lady, one of the guests from 
abroad, sitting for her portrait, while a lady 
artist. Miss Payen, with untrembling hand, trans- 
ferred her pleasing features to canvas. I won- 
dered at the composure of both. Nor was my 
astonishment diminished when, in the evening, 
I overheard that same young lady saying to Cap- 
tain Myers: 

" Now, remember, should they overpower us, 
your first duty will be to shoot me," 

Another lady, the mother of a family, displayed 
equal nerve. Her husband had given her a re- 
volver with the injunction, in the case supposed, 
first to shoot her daughters, and then to shoot 
herself, if he should not be at hand to relieve her 
of that painful duty. Both he and she are good 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 117 

Christians, and it is believed that similar arrange- 
ments were made in the case of every woman 
within the legation. In our circumstances there 
was no time for casuistry. 

How soon our protecting wall might fall a 
heap of ruins no one could tell ; but sure we were 
that the enemy were undermining it night and 
day. Whether the countermining operations 
would prove successful was far from certain. 
iThe Chinese are peculiarly skilful in this mode 
of attack. They had tried it successfully on the 
French legation, which was almost demolished. 
[When two buildings of that legation were blown 
into the air, a sentry on the roof of one of them, 
who went up along with the ruins, came down 
unhurt ! To his surprise, he found himself alive 
and buried to the chin in the midst of debris. 

Though we tried to look cheerful and to feel 
hopeful, yet when disappointed in our expecta- 
tion of speedy relief, we were led to fear the 
worst, we said, " God's will be done. If we 
perish our blood will be the regeneration of 
China. As our Lord shed his for the world, it is 
a small thing for us to shed ours for China." 

What wonder that in those dark hours we 
were reported as slain and the final scene de- 
picted in shocking detail, our likenesses were 



Il8 The Siege in Peking 

placed on the pages of Magazines, in the sable 
hues of mourning accompanied by our obituaries. 
It is not always a disadvantage to know what our 
friends think of us. If the reader will turn to the 
appendix he may there see an obituary of Sir R. 
Hart, which shows what his friends think of him. 

Almost from the beginning, we had sought to 
keep up our courage by the use of Scripture 
texts. They were usually supplied by Mrs. Ar- 
thur Smith, and I posted them at the gate-house, 
hoping they might catch the eye of some who had 
little time for Scripture reading. One day she 
handed me a text which she said was selected for 
her by Mrs, Conger, who met with it in her daily 
reading. We were all struck with its adaptation 
to the circumstances in which we were then 
placed. It was as follows: 

" We would not, brethren, have you ignorant' 
of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we 
were pressed out of measure, above strength, in- 
somuch that we despaired even of Hfe; but we 
had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we 
should not trust in ourselves, but in God which 
raiseth the dead ; who delivered us from so great 
a death, and doth deliver. In whom we trust 
that he will yet deliver us. Ye also helping to- 
gether by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed 
upon us by the means of many persons thanks' 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 1 19 

may be given by many on our behalf." — 2 Cor. 
i: 8-11. 



Whenever I had occasion to leave the gate 
during those long summer days I usually re- 
quested Dr. Arthur Smith to take my place as 
Inspector of Passes. He always spent much 
time sitting by my side, attracted not so much 
by the charms of my conversation as by the op- 
portunity which that post afforded for observing 
the life and manners of many nationalities. His 
conversation I greatly enjoyed, and I found that 
even the gravity of our situation failed to repress 
his flow of genial humor. A search of family 
records would probably confirm our suspicion 
that one of his ancestors was named Sidney. 

Pointing to Professor Gamewell, as he sped to 
and fro on his bicycle inspecting our defence 
works, he exclaimed : 

" That man seems to be a limited omnipres- 
ence." 

I cite the expression not so much for its nov- 
elty as its truth. Gamewell had displayed his 
skill in the art of fortification before the mission- 
aries took refuge in the legation. The several 
Protestant missions had joined their forces at the 



120 The Siege in Peking 

extensive grounds of the Methodist Mission, and, 
supplied with a reinforcement of twenty marines 
under the command of Captain Hall, they re- 
solved to maintain the position. 

On the death of Baron Ketteler, to their great 
disappointment, Captain Hall suddenly gave the 
order for its evacuation. 

The committees which they had there formed 
for defence and supply, and especially the experi- 
ence acquired, came into play at the British lega- 
tion, where Sir Claude MacDonald welcomed 
them with as much cordiality as he had accorded 
to the people of the legations. 

The native Christians were, as we have said, 
also welcomed, sheltered, and defended, though 
not within the same enclosure. When the ques- 
tion had come up in regard to them some days 
previously in a council of the Ministers, some 
members of the diplomatic corps objected to re- 
ceiving so large a body of natives on account of 
the danger of running short of provisions. The 
missionaries, however, had resolved to live or die 
with their converts, and their noble devotion was 
fully appreciated by the American and British 
Ministers, as well as by the greater part of the 
diplomatic body. 

Here is a letter in which the American Minister 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 121 

gracefully acknowledges the share which they 
and the missionaries bore in the work of defence : 

Legation of the United States of America, 
Peking, China, August i8, 1900. 

To THE Besieged American Missionaries : 

To one and all of you, so providentially saved 
from threatened massacre, I beg, in this hour of 
our deliverance, to express what I know to be 
the universal sentiments of the Diplomatic Corps, 
the sincere appreciation of, and professed pro- 
found gratitude for the inestimable help which 
you and the native Christians under your charge 
have rendered toward our preservation. 

Without your intelligent and successful plan- 
ning and the uncomplaining execution of the 
Chinese, I believe our salvation would have been 
impossible. 

By your courteous consideration of me, and 
your continued patience under most trying occa- 
sions, I have been deeply touched, and for it all 
I thank you most heartily. 

I hope and believe somehow, in God's uner- 
ring plan, your sacrifices and dangers will bear 
rich fruit in the material and spiritual welfare 
of the people to whom you have so nobly de- 
voted your lives and work. 

Assuring you of my personal respect and grati- 
tude, believe me, 

Very sincerely yours, > 

■ (Signed) E, H, Conger. 



122 The Siege in Peking 

We heard with much satisfaction that Li Hung 
Chang had been appointed to negotiate peace. 
A lover of his country, whatever else he may be, 
he has the further merit of being loyal to the 
reigning dynasty. Unlike the Dowager, he has 
always shown himself an enlightened friend of 
progress. No statesman of China, not even that 
southern viceroy whose famous book points out 
that education is the " only hope of China," can 
contest with him the palm of being pre-eminently 
the patron of the New Education. Some years 
ago I published a paper in a Chinese magazine 
pointing out his achievements in this direction. 
He was greatly pleased, as I was informed by his 
private secretary, and without hesitation con- 
tributed a laudatory preface to a book which I 
had prepared on " Christian Psychology." He 
had written similar prefaces for several scientific 
works prepared by me in former years. His 
reading of those works may not have disposed 
him to recommend to the young Emperor the 
creation of a university in the capital, but it did 
induce him to recommend their author for the 
presidency of that institution. 

When he proposed to me to accept the posi- 
tion, I consented to undertake it for two or three 
years, alleging my age as a reason for not think- 




li hung chang 
china's greatest statesman and peace commissionee. 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 123 

ing of a longer term of service. Surveying me 
from head to foot, " I guess," said he, " you're 
good for another ten years: I wish I had your 
legs." (He is partially paralyzed in his lower 
limbs.) 

" It is this that counts with a statesman," said 
I, tapping on my forehead. 

" Ah," he replied, with a smile, " but you are 
good at both ends." 

The first place I visited after returning to the 
United States legation was the new university. 
I found it occupied for a barrack by Russian 
troops. On going into my house, a handsome 
building in Mandarin style newly erected for the 
use of the president, I found that soldiers (not 
Russian) or Boxers had smashed every article 
of furniture, and dumped all my books, as well 
as those of the university, including valuable col- 
lections of Chinese authors, into the wells and 
cisterns. What wonder when they had trodden 
under foot, or burnt to ashes, the magnificent 
library of the Hanlin Academy ! My books they 
subjected to immersion rather than conflagra- 
tion, because the building, having been a princely 
palace, they were forbidden to destroy by fire. 

The wires of a piano and the lungs of a 
melodeon lay scattered about the floor, and on 



124 The Siege in Peking 

every side were to be seen fragments of Broken 
China. 

The telegraph informs us that the Russians, in 
whose bank they are deposited, have announced 
their intention to confiscate the funds of the uni- 
versity. After paying off our professors, on my 
requisition, they dechned to go on paying in- 
definitely — and declared to me their purpose to 
hold the funds in payment of Russian claims. 
Will Li Hung Chang, its founder and patron, 
consent to an act of spoliation so opposed to the 
usages of civilized nations ! 

No man is more sensible to the estimate in 
which he is held in Western countries. Four 
years ago I called on him, along with the Rev. 
Gilbert Reid, to soHcit a letter of recommenda- 
tion for an educational enterprise (the Interna- 
tional Institute) which Mr. Reid had taken in 
hand. 

" Why ! " said Li Hung Chang, " has not the 
Yamen already given him a letter of recom- 
mendation ? " (It had been done at Li's in- 
stance.) 

" True," said I ; " but the Western world don't 
know anything about the Tsung Li Yamen." 

" What ! " exclaimed Li. " Don't they know 
that we have a waipu — a foreign office ? " 




c5 O 



Additional Incidents of the Siege 125 

" Yes," said I, " but there are only two names 
in all China that they know anything about — one 
is Confucius, the other is Li Hung Chang." 

He smiled from ear to ear, and said, " I'll give 
it," immediately writing; a most flattering testi- 
monial. 



CHAPTER lVII 

RESCUE AND RETRIBUTION, 

We had feared, not without reason, that the 
Chinese forces which had gone out to meet the 
army of reHef might, on being vanquished, re- 
treat to the city, reinforce our assailants, and de- 
stroy us all before succor could arrive. This 
they took care not to do, after their experience 
of European arms ; yet certain it is that our be- 
siegers renewed their attacks with increasing 
fury as our friends approached the wall. Gen- 
eral Tung Fu Siang even promised the Dowager 
to wipe us out in five days. The attack on the 
night of the 13th of August was unusually ter- 
rific, and we looked forward with no little appre- 
hension to what might happen on the following 
night. Happily, before the following night the 
rescue was effected, and our enemies dispersed. 
Said General Chafifee to me : 

" It is lucky that we arrived one day ahead of 
time. The leaders had agreed to attack the city 
126 



Rescue and Retribution 127 

on the 15th, but the Russians, from whatever 
motive, having stolen a march on us, it was im- 
possible for the rest of us to be left behind, and 
so we all pressed forward to be ready to make 
the assault on the 14th. As we were bivouacked 
near the city on the night of the 13th, I heard the 
roar of Chinese guns playing on the legation, 
and I said, ' I fear we are already too late.' I 
could not sleep for anxiety," 

The Russians were no doubt animated by the 
same feeling, and thus providentially the enemy 
had no opportunity to renew their attack. 

I felt proud of my country when I learned how 
our Repubhc had stretched out her mighty arms 
to protect her citizens beyond the sea ; and how 
promptly our President had assumed the respon- 
sibility of action. And how proud I felt of our 
countrymen when I heard the story of their valor 
as exhibited in the march from the sea ! 

On the 17th of June the admirals demanded 
the surrender of the forts, in their ignorance pro- 
fessing only to desire to aid the government 
against the Boxers. The American admiral, I 
regret to say, declined to join in the demand or 
to participate in the assault. By what means he 
and our commanders were brought to change 
their views, I know not; but in the subsequent 



128 The Siege in Peking 

operations Americans have no reason to be 
ashamed of their record. 

In 1858 I had seen those forts silenced and 
captured in twenty minutes. In 1859 I had wit- 
nessed the defeat of a combined squadron of thir- 
teen English and French gun-boats by those 
same forts, nor was I without fear that on this 
occasion, strengthened as they had been by all 
the arts of modern warfare, they might have 
proved too strong for the attacking force. His- 
tory might, indeed, have had to chronicle another 
defeat but for an unforeseen circumstance. The 
Chinese gunners had trained their heavy artillery 
on the gun-boats, but, swinging with the tide, 
they all shifted their position except one. That 
one alone was struck when the firing commenced. 

The return fire from the gun-boats soon si- 
lenced the batteries, and the Chinese artillery- 
men took to flight. In their haste they forgot to 
break down a draw-bridge; a storming party 
succeeded in passing over without opposition, 
and the flags of the Allies were soon floating on 
their ramparts. 

The advance to Tien Tsin was stoutly opposed ; 
the Chinese in many instances fighting with 
great bravery. Three times at least was the 
American contingent repulsed, but, undismayed, 



Rescue and Retribution 129 

their brave officers led them on, and they con- 
tributed no small share to the relief of the be- 
leaguered settlement. In those battles Colonel 
Liscum lost his life, and not a few of his men 
fell with him. 

For ten days the foreign settlement had been 
closely pressed by the enemy; square miles of 
native houses were reduced to ashes ; the Hongs 
of foreign merchants were battered down, and 
their palatial residences were left in ruins. The 
women and children of the community were 
huddled together in the basement of Gordon 
Hall to get shelter from the bomb-shells, and the 
upper stories of that fine edifice threatened every 
moment to come down upon their heads. 

On the 23d their deliverers appeared on the 
opposite bank of the river (the Russians first), 
and they were saved. It was not, however, until 
three weeks later that the AlHes were able to 
force their way into the citadel of the native 
town. 

The n£xt step was to move on the capital, dis- 
tant eighty miles. The combined forces selected 
for that expedition did not much exceed 15,000 
men — a strong detachment having been left be- 
hind for the protection of Tien Tsin. Their 
march was not begun until the ist of August, 



130 The Siege in Peking 

and it is said that, owing to the heat and the rainy- 
season, some of the commanders were in favor 
of postponing the advance until September. But 
General Gaselee, in command of the British 
forces, and General Chaffee, in command of the 
American forces, supported by the Japanese, in- 
sisted on going forward without delay. The 
question was decided by the bold declaration of 
General Gaselee that should all others refuse to 
proceed he, with the British contingent, would at 
once push on to Peking. But for this prompt 
action their work would have been that of venge- 
ance, not rescue. 

At two or three points on the way they en- 
countered even fiercer opposition than before; 
but, cutting their way through overwhelming 
bodies of native troops, they pressed steadily 
forward. 

We had some intimation of the commencement 
of their march, but of their progress we heard 
nothing; and, as day succeeded day during that 
tedious fortnight, we speculated much on the 
composition of the force, and the disposition of its 
leaders, and we feared that political jealousies, 
rather than the prowess of the enemy, had held 
them in check. We suspected that General Mis- 
management was responsible for this delay ; and 



Rescue and Retribution 131 

some one suggested that, whoever led the di- 
visions, the whole movement must be under the 
command of General Slowcome. 

The resistance offered by the garrison on the 
outer walls was not of long duration. The fate 
of the capital was decided by the fall of Tien 
Tsin, and the battles at intermediate points in- 
spired the Government and its armies with the 
utmost terror. After a short struggle, the sol- 
diers who held the walls fled in confusion, and 
our troops entered in triumph. 

The Empress Dowager and her Court made 
their escape from the Western gates almost at 
the moment when our deHverers were battering 
down the Eastern gates. More than half the 
population abandoned their dwellings, and fled 
from the city. In their haste, they left behind 
them wardrobes filled with costly furs, their floors 
were strewn with the richest silks ; and in some 
cases the whole ground was covered with nug- 
gets of silver. What a temptation to plunder! 
The punishment of the guilty city would not have 
been too severe had it been formally given up 
to be sacked by the soldiery. It was not formally 
given up to pillage, but the commanders, though 
announcing their intention to forbid looting, 
appeared to be in no hurry to impose a 



132 The Siege in Peking 

check on the mingled wrath and cupidity of their 
men. 

The old practice is dear to the hearts of the 
soldiery. There is no nation whose soldiers have 
not taken part in it; whether from a feeling 
that in so doing they are wreaking well-merited 
vengeance on the Chinese people, or whether 
because fruit is the more attractive in conse- 
quence of being forbidden, it is hard to say. 
At all events, the expected prohibition was long 
delayed, giving many of them time to fill their 
pockets and their knapsacks. I even heard of a 
soldier who had loaded a wheelbarrow with nug- 
gets of silver. Having his attention called by a 
comrade to some pieces that were spilled over 
by the jolting of the vehicle, he laughed and said, 
" No matter, you take care of them." 

He was, in fact, impatient to convey his booty 
to a place of safety. A secure place for it was 
not easy to find; as all were apprehensive that 
they would be called on to surrender it, they did 
their utmost to get rid of it as soon as possible, 
hence the immense amount of bullion offered for 
sale in little driblets by individual soldiers, who 
appeared to be straggling here and there in quest 
of something. That something was not more 
booty, but a purchaser for what they had. It 



Rescue and Retribution 133 

was impossible to pass through the street in the 
vicinity of the Great Front Gate without encoun- 
tering soldiers of various nationalities who, mak- 
ing signs to the passer-by, stealthily drew from 
their sleeves or pockets silver, gems, small works 
of art, and curios of all descriptions, which were 
not too large to be concealed about the person. 

In this matter, as in others, there is a wide dif- 
ference to be observed in the degree of restraint 
imposed by the several countries. Some of them 
allow their soldiers practically unlimited license, 
others, notably the British Generals, forbid all 
private embezzlement, and collect, as far as pos- 
sible, every sort of plunder into a common stock 
to be sold at auction for the common benefit. 
Hence it was that for weeks caravans of mules 
and donkeys, and oftentimes long trains of wag- 
ons, all under the British or Japanese flags, might 
be seen wending their way to the head-quarters 
of one or other of those nations, laden with 
abandoned treasure, silks, furs, and grain. 

Of the public treasures, the Japanese, know- 
ing the exact points to seize on, succeeded in get- 
ting the lion's share. As to private property, 
much of it was abandoned, without a policeman, 
a domestic, or even a dog for its protection, so 
that it was wholly at the mercy of the first- 



134 The Siege in Peking 

comer. What wonder, then, that for several days 
the soldiers of all nationalities repaid themselves 
for hardship and danger by rioting in the midst 
of booty. 

Well were it had they confined themselves to 
the looting of empty houses. Some of them, I 
blush to say, violated the sacredness of the homes 
of poor families who had been unable to make 
their escape. The greatest number of outrages 
of this description were charged on a battalion 
of Chinese soldiery from Wei Hai Wei, who 
fought under the British flag, and were led by 
British officers. Though they have learned 
British discipline, they have not acquired British 
morals. 

■The missionaries and their converts, eman- 
cipated from duress but without a house of their 
own to which they could return, were permitted 
by the military authorities to find quarters for 
themselves in any of the abandoned houses they 
might choose to occupy. With this wide range 
of selection, some installed themselves, with their 
flocks, in the mansions of princes; others occu- 
pied the houses of lesser nobility, or wealthy 
mandarins. Nor were those authorities slow to 
exercise a similar liberty on their own account. 
Places more august and sacred than princes' 



Rescue and Retribution 135 

mansions were seized for their own use and that 
of their soldiers. General Gaselee pitched his 
camp within the holy grounds (the tcmcnos) of 
the temple of Heaven, and made his head-quar- 
ters in the Emperor's carriage park. The Amer- 
icans took possession of the Temple of Agri- 
culture, where the Emperor prays in person for 
a good harvest. 

In a commodious but not imposing building, I 
passed a few days under the hospitable care of the 
ladies of the Presbyterian Mission. While there, 
the missionaries having gone out, I was called by 
my servants to see a foreigner who had come in 
without sending his card. I found him making 
his exit from the apartments of the Rev. J. L. 
Whiting, with Mr. Whiting's rifle in one hand 
and his revolver in the other. He was, I am sorry 
to say, a white man, and, laying down the weap- 
ons on my demand, he confessed himself an 
American ! 

The missionaries being In great anxiety as to 
a food-supply for their converts, accompanied by 
Rev. Dr. Wherry and Rev. J. L. Whiting, I pro- 
ceeded to do a little looting on their behalf. 

I had heard of a deserted grain-shop in the 
inner city, close to the university. There we dis- 
covered a considerable store of wheat, millet, 



136 The Siege in Peking 

and other grain. Loading it in carts, we carried 
away not less than two hundred bushels. Call- 
ing aloud to the proprietor, I informed him that 
on the presentation of his bill I would pay the 
full value of his property, but echo was the only 
answer that returned. 

The Rev. E. G. Tewkesbury, who, during the 
siege had been Chief of Commissariat, now 
showed that he knew well how to obtain supplies 
for his needy Christians. The American Board 
Mission being installed in a prince's mansion, he 
discovered there and in neighboring buildings 
large quantities of furs, silks, and other valu- 
ables, which, having previously advertised them 
to the army and the legations, he sold at public 
auction for the benefit of native converts. Of 
those things, Mr. Squiers, the gallant Secretary 
of the United States legation, became a large 
purchaser, and the Rev. W. B. Stelle, a self-sup- 
porting missionary, who, before the siege, had 
along with Dr. Ament made a notable excursion 
through regions infested by Boxers, and who 
during the siege had done yeoman's duty in bear- 
ing arms, now purchased four boxes of furs to 
be sold in New York for the benefit of suffering 
Christians. So much for the charges of looting 
that have been brought against missionaries! 



Rescue and Retribution 137 

Gladly do I share in the blame which they incur, 
and confess myself equally guilty with them, 
though the only object which I appropriated to 
my own use was a goat-skin rug. This I found 
on the floor of a nice house which my servants 
chose for me just at the west side of the Great 
Front Gate, That building I occupied alone for 
a few days, and whenever I went out it was sure 
to be invaded by straggling soldiers of various 
nationalities — Hindoo, Russian, or American — 
who carried away some things; and, as my ser- 
vants said, threatened to split open my trunks to 
get at their contents, suspecting that they were 
full of loot. So frequently did this occur that I 
felt compelled to seek an abode along with oth- 
ers, where we could have the benefits of mutual 
protection. 

The great metropolis was subdivided between 
the various divisions of the conquering force. 
The northern half of the Tartar City was occu- 
pied by the Japanese; the central portion, to- 
gether with a part of the inner, or Imperial, city 
by the Russians, who erected batteries on the 
beautiful hill within the Imperial Gardens, and 
seized our new university for barracks. 

The portions which fell to the lot of the other 
six nations it is unnecessary to point out. All 



138 The Siege in Peking 

those divisions were signalized as under the con- 
trol of some foreign power by the display on all 
public buildings of one or other of their Eight 
Banners. 

The Eight Banners of the Manchus were no- 
where to be seen, but, in their stead, floated from 
innumerable private dwellings small copies of 
those foreign flags, inscribed with Chinese let- 
ters, indicating that their occupants " were faith- 
ful subjects of the Great Sunrise Empire " ; or, 
" Submissive to the sway of the Russian Czar " ; 
or, " Humble subjects of the great United 
States," etc. 

On some of them might be read an inscription 
in " pidgin " English, or bad French : 

" We be good people — no makee bobbery ! 
Please, don't shoot." 

So effectually cowed were these lately bellig- 
erent multitudes that, had they been required to 
worship the Crucifix and submit to Christian 
baptism, they would have shown no hesitation in 
doing so. 

The proud city, the Babylon of the East, is 
brought down to the dust. Her gate-towers 
have been burned : some by her own people, oth- 
ers by the conquering army ; of her public build- 
ings some have been destroyed by the foreign 



Rescue and Retribution 139 

legions ; but destruction on a larger scale in every 
quarter has been perpetrated by the mad fury of 
the Boxers. It will take half a century to restore 
its former splendor. 

Yet did the Allies, in the midst of this devasta- 
tion, purposely spare the Imperial palaces. In 
i860 the Anglo-French expedition destroyed the 
summer-palace, as a punishment for an outrage 
on a flag of truce. Would, not the AlHes on this 
occasion have been fully justified in blowing up 
the palace of the Empress Dowager, as a punish- 
ment for her perfidy and cruelty? They chose, 
instead, merely to make a triumphal march into 
the penetralia of the Forbidden City, in order to 
impress the Chinese Court with a sense of hu- 
mihation, and convince the Chinese people of the 
victory of the foreign forces. They hope that 
the Emperor and his Court may be induced to 
return to that magnificent abode. May they not 
be mistaken in this expectation? For is it not 
well known that there are certain birds which, 
when you so much as touch the interior of their 
nest, never, under any circumstances, return to 
occupy it again ? 

Pao Ting Fu, the capital of the province, as 
the scene of unheard-of atrocities, has been oc- 
cupied by a joint expedition of British, German, 



140 The Siege in Peking 

and French ; its walls broken down, some of its 
public buildings destroyed, and some of its high- 
est officials condemned to death. The city has 
been intentionally subjected to disgrace. It de- 
serves to be sown with salt. 

Tai Yuen, the capital of the neighboring 
Province of Shansi, deserves a similar fate, for 
there it was that the truculent Governor, Yu 
Hien, imbrued his hands in the blood of over 
fifty missionaries. Ninety-three in all, Catholic 
and Protestant, are reported as having perished 
in this tempest of fire and blood. The details of 
their sufferings will not bear repetition, yet we 
may say of them, as an English poet says of the 
victims of the Sepoy Mutiny, that 

" Every outraged woman died a virgin undefiled, 
And every hewn-up infant was a Bethlehem's holy 
child." 

If few foreigners outside of the missionary 
circle lost their lives, it was because there were 
few, or none, exposed to the savage foe in un- 
protected places. Little cared that savage foe 
whether they wreaked their vengeance on church 
or railway. Anything foreign was to them like 
a red rag to an infuriated bull. In one of their 



Rescue and Retribution 141 

manifestoes they ended by saying: "When we 
have slaughtered them all, we shall tear up the 
railways, cut down the telegraphs, and then fin- 
ish off by burning their steamboats." 



CHAPTER VIII 

RECONSTRUCTION 

The telegraph informs us that the represent- 
atives of the great powers in China are substan- 
tially agreed as to the demands they are to make 
upon the Chinese Government. It remains to 
be seen whether a government exists capable of 
complying with those demands, or willing to do 
so. That the Court will never consent to the 
humiliation of returning to Peking, to lay its 
neck beneath the headsman's axe, is highly 
probable. Nor is it unlikely that it will prove 
itself utterly unable to sustain the debt which it 
must incur to indemnify eight foreign nations 
for a long campaign, and their people, together 
with a large body of native Christians for the de- 
struction of their property. 

The war must go on until the Manchu Gov- 
ernment consents to do this, and to give suitable 
guarantees against the recurrence of any similar 
uprising in the future. They must be disarmed, 
and rendered incapable of again jeopardizing the 
142 



Reconstruction 143 

peace of the civilized world. The tiger's teeth 
must be drawn, his claws cut short by the de- 
struction of his arsenals, and a prohibition be 
placed on the importation of munitions of war. 
Let China be compelled to march in the van of 
those nations of whom it is said, " they shall learn 
war no more." 

It is related of a Methodist preacher that a 
notorious bully swore that the next time he came 
around he would put a stop to his psalm-singing 
and his exhortations. He, however, reckoned 
without his host, for the preacher was himself a 
Boxer, and, when attacked, succeeded in less than 
no time in flooring his antagonist. Jumping 
astride of him, he pounded away until the by- 
standers begged him to let the poor devil up. 

" No," said he, " I will not let the devil up. 
My object is to keep the devil down; nor will I 
cease pounding until this wretched man promises 
to seek the salvation of his soul." 

This is what I would have the Allies do in the 
case of China. I would have no state church 
established in any portion of that empire; but 
our worst enemy in the last resort is heathen 
darkness, and, if we would not let the " devil up " 
to attack us again, we must wage war on the 
powers of darkness until the true light shall be 



144 The Siege in Peking 

allowed to shine without hindrance into every 
nook and corner of the land. 

There must be no abridgment of the rights 
and privileges of missionaries ; no relaxation in 
the efforts of the home churches. The wondrous 
awakening, comparable to a shaking among the 
dry bones, which took place during the short 
interval preceding the Dowager's unlucky coup 
d'etat is sure to be succeeded by a national 
resurrection on a much broader scale. We may 
justly look for novus ordo sedorum, to begin with 
the twentieth century. Let America, as she has 
so nobly borne her part in the rescue of the lega- 
tions, bear her full share in the Christian crusade 
of the coming age. 

American interests of all kinds are striking 
their roots deep into the soil of China. Among 
the railways radiating from Hankow, that great 
centre of population, wealth, and power, no line 
will exceed in importance that which an Ameri- 
can Company has laid out through Hunan, 
Kwangsi, and Kwangtung to the seaport of 
Canton. To such enterprises increased value is 
given by the resolution of the powers to main- 
tain, if possible, the integrity of the empire. The 
open door appears to be their settled policy. Let 
the door be forever open to light as well as to 



Reconstruction 145 

trade. We are informed that, of all the higher 
institutions established in late years for the edu- 
cation of the people of China, there is not one that 
has not had an American citizen at its head. Let 
the number of such be multiplied, and not dimin- 
ished, in years to come. 

The representatives of the powers agree, we 
are told, in proposing to recall the Emperor. So 
natural is this idea that no one can claim orig- 
inality for having hit upon it, yet the present 
writer was perhaps the first to propose it as the 
basis for a scheme of reconstruction. 

My views on the subject were reduced to writ- 
ing as early as the middle of June, and put in print 
shortly after the raising of the siege. They are 
here copied from the Peking and Tien Tsin Times 
of September 15, 1900 : 

' THE PROBLEM OF RECONSTRUC- 
TION." 

By Dr. W. A. P. Martin, of Peking. 

" It may, perhaps, add somewhat to the interest 
of the following paragraphs to know that they 
were written at the beginning of the siege, and 
at that time placed in the hands of some of the 
diplomats in the capital. Now, after the flight 
of the Dowager and Court, I find in them noth- 
ing to alter or modify, and, to make this appar- 



146 The Siege in Peking 

ent, I reproduce the original with quotation 
marks : 

" ' The question of the hour is how to restore 
order, and at the same time secure the fruits of 
a revolution which has so unexpectedly placed 
the fate of China in the hands of foreign Powers. 
Four measures appear to cover the ground : 

" * I. To undo the mischief done by her, let the 
Empress Dowager be sent into exile, and let the 
Emperor be restored to his proper authority, sub- 
ject to a concert of the great Powers, 

" * 2. Let all the acts of the Empress Dowager, 
beginning with her coup d'etat and including the 
appointment of her partisans, be cancelled, ex- 
cept such as are approved by the new administra- 
tion. 

" * 3. Let the Emperor's programme of reform 
be resumed, and carried out with the sanction of 
the Powers. 

" ' 4. Let the Powers mark out their spheres of 
interest, and each appoint a representative to 
control the action of provincial governments 
within its own sphere. 

" ' For China, complete independence is neither 
possible nor advisable. The above plan would 
keep existing machinery in operation, avert an- 
archy, favor progress, and conciliate the support 
of the most enlightened among the Chinese peo- 
ple. The alternative is the overthrow of the 
present dynasty and the formal partition of the 
empire — a process involving long and bitter con- 



Reconstruction 147 

flicts. By tHe scheme proposed, foreign Powers 
will have time to mature their policy, and to in- 
troduce gradual reforms, gaining vastly more 
than they could hope to secure by open or violent 
absorption. It is easy to govern China through 
the Chinese; impossible otherwise." 
"'Peking, June 18, 1900.' 

" In looking over these paragraphs the only 
thing I have to add (and that only by way of ex- 
planation) is a suggestion that the joint commis- 
sion of foreign Powers should have an absolute 
veto on all measures hostile to their common in- 
terests. Besides this, they should have the initia- 
tion, though not exclusive, in progressive reforms. 

W. A. P. M. 
" Tien Tsin, September 13, 1900." 

This brief outline I may amplify and explain, 
but even at this date (November 6) I would not 
alter it in any essential particular. 

It requires, however, a little explanation !o 
guard against misapprehension. 

As to the first point, at this date, all parties 
appear to see eye to eye ; and the restoration of 
the Emperor will be a fait accompli if not op- 
posed by the Empress Dowager. As to the 
second, it is not intended to suggest any direct 
penalty. Deprivation of power is in itself suffi- 
cient punishment for a woman of her proud and 



148 The Siege in Peking 

haughty disposition. That she merits to be 
treated with greater severity, no one will ques- 
tion; but many considerations militate against 
meting out to her an extreme measure of justice. 
The Southern Viceroys have been fairly faithful 
to their engagements to restrain the people of 
their Provinces from any sort of outbreak, either 
directed against foreigners or native Christians. 
They have succeeded in fact in checking the 
spread of the Boxer fanaticism within their boun- 
daries. When, therefore, such men plead for in- 
dulgent treatment toward the Empress Dowager, 
they have a right to be heard. In begging for 
" indulgent treatment," they by no means de- 
mand the restora.tion of her power ; merely the 
preservation of that which the Chinese consider 
as above power and above life itself, that myste- 
rious something which they call " face." On this 
point they would no doubt be fully satisfied to 
see her sent into retirement at some point within 
the Empire, say Jehol in Mongolia, or Sianfu 
in Shensi, which she has now chosen for the seat 
of her court. 

Should the Emperor return to Peking, the 
Dowager ought by all means not to be allowed 
to accompany him. In fact, the wider distance 
by which they are separated, the better ; and as 





f"> 



Reconstruction 149 

she has of late shown herself an avowed patroness 
of the enemies of railways and telegraphs, there 
should be neither one nor the other between her 
and her Imperial Nephew. Should she merely be 
sent into retirement at her old palace on the 
Kwen Ming Lake (near Peking), she would in- 
evitably continue to be as she was in her previous 
retirement, a power behind the throne, handling 
the cards with a dexterity acquired from forty 
years of manipulation. Were the powers to insist 
on banishing her to some Elba, beyond the 
boundaries of her own country, the loyal Vice- 
roys, who have succeeded so admirably in steer- 
ing a middle course between their duty to her and 
their obligations to foreign countries, would un- 
doubtedly regard that penalty as a national in- 
dignity. 

The fourth raises the most serious question 
which the powers have to deal with. It is one 
which might easily set them at loggerheads, and 
plunge China into the vortex of a sanguinary 
conflict, a war of giants in comparison with which 
the struggles of native princes are like the battles 
of pigmies and cranes. Nor is it now raised for 
the first time. It originated more than a score 
of years ago. — Each of China's neighbors, espe- 
cially Great Britain, France, and Russia, having 



150 The Siege In Peking 

at that early date fixed their eyes, and also 
planted their feet on a portion of the Empire 
which they intended to claim as their special 
sphere, or in the event of a break-up, as their 
territorial dependency. Since the war with 
Japan, two other claimants have come forward, 
the Sunrise Empire and Germany ; and Chinese 
statesmen were three years ago wrought up to 
a high pitch of excitement by having placed be- 
fore their eyes a new map of China with the red 
lines of division, marking out her territory as 
partitioned amongst the great powers of Europe 
and the East. 

Now, after this tremendous upheaval, the ques- 
tion of partition or delimitation of spheres of 
influence looms up like a spectre. The central 
regions of those spheres are sufficiently under- 
stood ; Russia has hers in the North and North- 
east ; France, her ally, having hers in the South 
and Southwest ; Great Britain having chosen 
hers in the centre, the magnificent and well 
watered valley of the Yangtse, which rivals in 
extent and wealth of productions our own Mis- 
sissippi Valley. For Japan, as she has already 
got Formosa, it is natural that she should de- 
mand a foothold on the opposite coast. Ger- 
many, having planted herself already on the 



Reconstruction 15*1 

coast, is reaching westward to the far interior, 
and it remains to be seen how much of the hinter- 
land will be allowed to go with her seaport under 
the name of " sphere of influence." 

Let us take another glance at these indefinite 
claims with a view to ascertaining somewhat 
more exactly their probable extent. 

With regard to that of Russia. Never since 
Yermak, with his Cossacks, crossed the Ural 
Mountains, and annexed Siberia, three hundred 
years ago, has she made such a sweeping annexa- 
tion of territory as she now proposes to effect 
under the veil of a sphere of influence. Her 
sphere will unquestionably comprehend the three 
great Provinces of the Northeast, which form 
Manchuria, the original home of the reigning 
dynasty. To this she will add the whole of Mon- 
golia, Turkestan, Hi, and the Pamirs to the North 
of India. 

Already has she cast covetous eyes on the en- 
tire belt of Northern Provinces, which border on 
the Great Wall. There can, however, be no 
doubt that the other powers will combine to op- 
pose the acquisition by her of any exclusive pre- 
ponderance in that region. This, more than any- 
thing else, I take to be the meaning of that 
remarkable Fourth Clause in the recent agree- 



152 The Siege In Peking 

ment between England and Germany. That belt 
of Provinces if withheld from the predominant 
influence of any one power, will therefore remain 
as the nucleus of an Empire, a common ground 
for the combined influence of all. 

The basis for the gradual absorption of Chinese 
territory was laid by Russia as early as 1858, 
when the four powers, England, France, Russia, 
and the United States were negotiating their 
treaties at Tien Tsin. Two of them were belliger- 
ents, each with the right to carve out for itself 
with its own sword as much territory as its ally 
would consent to. The others possessed also 
some advantage in being neutrals, and skilfully 
did Russia play her cards, for she obtained, as 
the price of neutrality on that occasion, the ces- 
sion of a strip of sea-coast 700 miles in length, 
extending southward from the mouth of the 
Amoor, and confronting the Empire of Japan. 
One day, during the negotiations, Pien Lao Ye, 
one of the Secretaries of Queileang, came to me 
to beg me (I was then interpreter) to persuade 
Mr. Reed, the American Minister, to use his in- 
fluence with the Russian Minister, to induce him 
to withdraw his demand for that portion of Man- 
churia. Said Pien, 

" With US; it is not a question of territory, but 



Reconstruction 153 

of the inhabitants. The Emperor has such a vast 
domain that he would scarcely miss a small strip 
like that, but within that small strip are 7,000 
Manchu families. Them he regards as his near 
kinsmen, or rather as his own children, and he 
cannot bear to turn them over to the sway of a 
foreign power." 

It was pathetic, his affection (like that of 
Mrs. Jellaby) for those far-off tribes ; but need- 
less to say, the American Minister saw no reason 
for interposing to check the advance of Russia. 

In addition to the Valley of the Yangtse, 
Great Britain will either stretch her shield over 
the whole course of the Pearl River, east and 
west, including the Great mart of Canton; or 
that region, the original seat of foreign trade in 
China, might, like the Northern Provinces, be 
reserved as common ground. 

Germany is already planning a railway to the 
capital of Shan Tung. In her newspapers she 
speaks of the province as German China, nor 
is it improbable that her claims upon the hin- 
terland may be made to cover the South of Chili 
and the North of Honan, both bounded by the 
Yellow River. 

The Province of Fo Kien will be regarded by 
Jagan as her appropriate sphere; especially as she 



154 The Siege in Peking 

was compelled by the Powers to forego the occu- 
pation of Liao Tung, or Southern Manchuria. 
It was a master stroke on the part of Russia, thus 
to oust a victorious nation and reserve for herself 
a rich region which that Power already held by 
right of conquest. 

Two years ago Germany proposed the appoint- 
ment, at the provincial capital, of a German Gov- 
ernor to sit beside the representative of Chinese 
majesty. The scheme was not carried out, nor 
do I, in suggesting the appointment within each 
sphere of a high functionary to " control " the 
action of provincial governors, intend that they 
shall themselves be Governors. The word " con- 
trol " I employ rather in the French sense as in- 
dicating their office to take note of and restrain, 
if necessary, the action of the native governors. 
Such powers would not be difficult to define. In- 
deed, had there been present in Tsinanfu a Ger- 
man official (comptroller we may call him) along- 
side of Yu Hien to play the spy on his move- 
ments, and impose a check on his extravagance, 
we never should have heard of his distributing 
arms to the Boxers; and this great revolution 
would have been nipped in the bud. 

Austria and Italy will each claim something 
to be called a sphere. For: Austria, perhaps, it 



Reconstruction 155 

may be the Island of Chusan ; for Italy some part 
of the adjacent mainland, where she has tried in 
vain to set her foot. 

As for the United States: We carefully ab- 
stained from demanding territory as the price of 
our neutrality, forty years ago. In the recent 
conflict, I am proud to say, we have not been 
neutral; yet are we less disposed than any other 
nation to indulge in territorial aggrandizement? 
Perhaps because we have enough on our hands 
at home and abroad. If I were to point out any 
place within the bounds of China where, in lieu 
of the payment of war expenses, China might 
concede us a pied a terre, it would be the island of 
Hainan, a stepping-stone between Hong-Kong 
and the Philippines. It is half as large as Sicily, 
and capable of being made equally rich in its 
productions. 

We should then have a tangible ground for 
demanding to be heard on all great questions 
relating to the future of China. 

It was not land-grabbing which impelled Great 
Britain sixty years ago to demand the island of 
Hong-Kong. What she wanted was a Pousto, a 
fulcrum from which to move the world ; nor for 
us will it be unduly aggressive to negotiate for 
the island of Hainan. 



156 The Siege in Peking 

With what is called by the opprobrious name 
of Imperialism, I have little sympathy, but nat- 
ural expansion or growth is quite a different 
thing. For America, no more than for Great 
Britain, will it do 

** Her proud pre-eminence to abdicate, 
Through craven fear of growing great." 

It was not Imperialism that led the Russian 
Empire to overstep the Urals, and make her way 
to the Pacific. What lover of his race would 
wish the centuries rolled back because she en- 
countered a few Turgouths, Buriats, and Samo- 
yedes in her pathway? Had she from want ofi 
energy neglected her opportunity, instead of that 
vast domain containing the longest railway in 
the world, the North of Asia would have pre- 
sented only a battle-ground for savage tribes. 
Had our forefathers neglected their opportuni- 
ties, we should not to-day have possessed a foot 
of land to the west of the Mississippi ; nor would 
Florida have been one among the Stars upon our 
flag. 

It is by natural growth that we have ex- 
panded our territory to the Pacific, and extended 
our influence to Japan and China. It was by 
the embracing .of an offered opportunity by our 



Reconstruction 157 

statesmen that Japan was lifted out of her old 
groove, and set going on her new career. In 
that empire, so conspicuous has our influence 
been, that the language we speak is described as 
Americano (not English). In China, up to the 
present time, our political influence has been in- 
conspicuous; but now a great opportunity pre- 
sents itself, and God forbid that it should pass 
unimproved. In my view, no great extent of 
territory is required to give us the needed foot- 
hold. If an island be not desirable, a sea-port on 
the mainland will give us all that is needed, 
namely : a shelter for our naval squadrons ; a post 
where our armies may rendezvous in case they 
are required either to oppose the absorption of 
China by some grasping nationality, or to quell 
another uprising against the civilized world such 
as we are now witnessing. 

This is demanded by our natural growth. 
Without it our growing commerce and our mag- 
nificent railway and mining enterprises in the in- 
terior would be insecure. 

With regard to the final settlement, English 
organs in China hold substantially the foregoing 
views. As to what the Germans think on the 
subject, we may gather from the Ostasiatische 
Lloyd, the German organ in the Far East. An 



158 The Siege in Peking 

extract, under twelve heads, in the North China 
Herald of October 3, 1900, reads as follows : 

" I. No withdrawal from Peking until the 
whole matter is settled. 

" 2. No Chinese connected with the recent 
outrages to be accepted as negotiators, and the 
negotiations on the side of the allies to be con- 
ducted by one representative, say the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 

" 3. The instigators of outrages and others to 
be punished in their purse, their most sensitive 
part. 

" 4. H. M. Kuang Hsu to be restored, if pos- 
sible ; if not, a new Emperor not connected with 
the Empress Dowager's clique. Prince Tuan's 
son to be deposed from the position of Heir Ap- 
parent. The Empress Dowager to be allowed 
to retire into private life without further penal- 
ties. 

" 5. Peking to remain the capital, Nanking be- 
ing too much exposed to the preponderating 
influence of a foreign naval power, and other 
proposed capitals too inaccessible. 

" 6. No territorial compensation to any for- 
eign Power. Stricter observance of treaties. A 
money indemnity to be paid, guaranteed on all 
the revenues of the empire, with the exception 
of: 

" (a) Those already hypothecated. 

" (b) Those necessary to the officials for work- 
ing expenses. 



F.econstmction 159 

" 7. Reorganization of the finances with aboli- 
tion of all squeezes and sinecures, under Euro- 
pean army of occupation, to maintain peace and 
order until all reforms work smoothly. 

" 8. Limitation of the military and naval forces 
to be maintained by China, and of the arms and 
munitions to be imported or manufactured. 

" 9. No forts or camps to be maintained with- 
in a radius of thirty miles of the four principal 
treaty ports, and no forts on waterways navigable 
by men-of-war. An accurate account shall be 
kept of all Chinese troops within a radius of thirty 
miles from any treaty port. 

" 10. Full liberty to Chinese and foreigners to 
work mines, railways, etc., and navigate inland 
waters. 

" II. Missionaries to be restricted to spheres 
within a radius of thirty miles from a treaty port, 
female missionaries to be restricted to the treaty 
ports. No missionary, under pain of punish- 
ment or deportation, to engage in anything but 
the propagation of the Gospel and the spread of 
knowledge. 

" 12. Proclamations stating the terms of peace 
to be posted in every town in China for at least 
one year, and immediately replaced when de- 
stroyed." 

It is satisfactory to find that the editor of the 
English journal takes strong exception to the 
clause which provides for placing restrictions on 



l6o The Siege in Peking 

missionary enterprise. No man knows better 
than he that the kilHng of missionaries was not 
the cause, but the occasion of the Boxer out- 
break — the poHtical jealousy of a foreign dynasty, 
as well as the objection of a conservative people 
to every enterprise which appears to take the 
bread out of their mouths, being really at the 
bottom of it.* 

Scarcely would it have been more unfair to 
accuse missionaries of having caused the Sepoy 
Rebellion than to charge them with provoking 
the Boxer outrages. In both cases they have 
been pre-eminently victims rather than parties in 
the conflict. With the Sepoy a greased cartridge 
was the spark which lighted the explosion; in 
the case of the Boxers, it was not the blood of 
the missionary so much as the subsequent mani- 
festation of German aggression and German 
enterprise, which, as we have said, resulted in 
their transformation into a great political party. 

Missionary societies did not withdraw their 
agents from India, but felt encouraged to re- 
doubled effort by such statesmen as Lord Law- 
rence, who declared that missionaries had done 
more for India than either civilians or military. 

* His comments, which are worth preserving, may be seen 
in the Appendix. 



Reconstruction l6l 

In regard to China, not merely has it been 
occasionally proposed to withdraw missionaries 
from the interior, but some have even suggested 
the abandonment of China as a mission field. 
Such persons are far from understanding the 
character of the Chinese people. Under a liberal 
ruler like the young Emperor, they woke up 
with marvellous suddenness to the wants of their 
own country, and the superior excellence of our 
Christian civilization; but under the Empress 
Dowager, deceived and misguided, they fell in 
with her reactionary policy. With them it is 
a fixed principle to follow the guidance of the 
throne. Often is it asserted in their sacred books 
that the " One Man," by his teaching and exam- 
ple, is able to lead the nation in the right or the 
wrong way. 

In my mind there remains no doubt that the 
eflects of the recent victory will gradually (for 
nothing goes fast in China) make a deep impres- 
sion on the Chinese mind. The effect will be 
not only a resuscitation of the reform movement, 
but an adoption of the essential elements of our 
civilization to an extent never before imagined. 
The way has been cleared for the introduction of 
a new epoch, which may be expected to com- 
mence with the twentieth century. 



l62 The Siege in Peking 

Glad I am to learn that seventeen missionary 
societies in America — Baptist, Congregationalist, 
Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and some 
twelve or thirteen others — meeting in convoca- 
tion recently resolved not to withdraw their mis- 
sionaries from China, but to make redoubled 
efforts for the conversion of that populous em- 
pire. 

They adopted a series of resolutions, of which 
the following is the substance : 

" While the uprising in China has, of course, 
had a restrictive, and, in some places, a deeply 
injurious present effect on missionary opera- 
tions, there is no adequate ground for discour- 
agement, and the work ought to be, and must be, 
resumed at as early a date as may be practicable 
and wise. There is no disposition to be reckless 
in reopening stations. We do not underestimate 
the possible consequences of premature resump- 
tion of work. The servants of the Lord must be 
sensible, but not for a moment are we discour- 
aged. Clear, strong, and unanimous was the 
note of both conferences that God will overrule 
this disturbance for the furtherance of the Gos- 
pel : that, just as the most successful era of mis- 
sionary work in India followed the mutiny of 
1857, so will a new day for China date from the 
Boxer riots of 1900; that not only should every 
destroyed station be rebuilt, but that plans should 



Reconstruction 163 

be made for reinforcements and increased ex- 
penditures, in order that the Church of God may 
seize the coming strategic opportunity to win 
China for Christ. The missionaries in particu- 
lar were united and enthusiastic in the conviction 
that a large number of new missionaries will be 
needed next year, and that the young men in the 
theological seminaries should be encouraged to 
apply for appointment," 

For the whole paper, which acquires immense 
weight from the fact that it expresses the views 
of seventeen societies, see Appendix. 

The Powers have agreed on the basis of a final 
settlement. Dr. Morrison, in a cable to the Lon- 
don Times, gives the following lucid summary, 
under date of Peking, Sunday, November nth. 
He says : 

" Pressed by the common desire for a speedy 
termination of present conditions, the foreign 
envoys have finally agreed to the following 
terms, to be presented in a conjoint note which, 
subject to the approval of the governments, will 
be pressed upon China as the basis of a pre- 
liminary treaty: 

" China shall erect a monument to Baron von 
Ketteler on the site where he was murdered and 
send an imperial prince to Germany to convey 
an apology. She shall inflict the death-penalty 



164 The Siege in Peking 

upon eleven princes and officials already named, 
and suspend provincial examinations for five 
years where the outrages occurred. In future all 
officials failing to prevent anti-foreign outrages 
vi^ithin their jurisdiction shall be dismissed and 
punished. [This is a modification of, Mr. Con- 
ger's proposal.] 

" Indemnity shall be paid to the states, corpora- 
tions, and individuals. The Tsung Li Yamen 
shall be abolished, and its functions vested in a 
foreign minister. Rational intercourse shall be 
permitted with the Emperor as in civilized coun- 
tries. 

" The forts at Taku and the other forts on the 
coast of Chi-li shall be razed and the importation 
of arms and war material prohibited. Permanent 
legation guards shall be maintained, and also 
guards of communication between Peking and 
the sea. 

" Imperial proclamations shall be posted for 
two years throughout the empire suppressing 
Boxers. 

" The indemnity is to include compensation 
for Chinese who suffered through being em- 
ployed by foreigners, but not compensation for 
native Chinese Christians. The words ' mission- 
ary ' and ' Christian ' do not occur in the note." 

It is gratifying to know of a certainty that the 
integrity of China, under her own rulers, is thus 
provided for. Though nothing is said of the 



Reconstruction 165 

young Emperor, it is understood that if his ty- 
rannical Aunt allows him to return, he will be the 
figure-head (if nothing more) in the new govern- 
ment, as he has been in the old. Under the new 
regime, however, the surveillance of the Dowager 
will be replaced by that of Dame Europa — or 
better still, that of the two dames, mother and 
daughter, Europe and America. 

That will be sufficient guarantee for a liberal 
policy which shall make provision for all legiti- 
mate interests and enterprises. The open door 
will be maintained, and, though in this protocol 
the word missionary does not occur, we refuse to 
believe that any set of negotiators could be stolid 
enough to exclude from China the dispensers of 
knowledge, human and divine; as if light were 
the one commodity she could afford to dispense 
with ! No such arrangement would be ratified 
by the Christian World, and if it were, it would 
not be of long duration ; for in a few lustrums a 
fresh outbreak might be expected which would 
call for a readjustment of relations on a more 
liberal basis. 

The punishment of the guilty princes com- 
mends itself to our sense of justice. The Chinese 
negotiators pled for their lives, and there was rea- 
son to fear they would escape the death-penalty. 



i66 The Siege In Peking 

It would have been an outrage on the moral 
sense of Christendom to allow Prince Tuan, the 
great patron of the Boxers, to go with hoary hair 
down to the grave in peace. Equally abhorrent 
would it be to permit Prince Chuang, military 
governor of the city, to come to what the Chinese 
call Shan Chang, " a happy end," after having 
issued proclamations setting a price on foreign 
heads : " Sixty taels for the head of a man, fifty 
for the head of a woman, and thirty for the head 
of a child." 

As for the Heir Apparent, it would be mad- 
ness to permit him to ascend the Throne at any 
future day — especially if his father be condemned 
to death. For in that case, the first duty incum- 
bent on him would be to avenge his parent. Says 
the Book of Rites : " When your father has been 
slain, wear your sword night and day ; and when- 
ever you meet the slayer in palace or in market- 
place, be ready to plunge it into his bosom." 
This passage the Ta Aga will bring to the mem- 
ory of Christendom, if he be allowed in any way 
to direct the destinies of the Chinese empire. 

A document of scarcely inferior interest to this 
telegraphic intelligence has just fallen into my 
hands, viz. : the Parliamentary Blue Book, China, 
No. 3, 1900. 



Reconstruction 167 

The reports, Consular and Ministerial, which 
it contains bring- us down to the eve of the rupt- 
ure. Instructive and exciting is the reading which 
they supply, but on one point only can I allow 
space for a few extracts, viz. : the different aspect 
which the Boxer movement presented to the eyes 
of Missionaries and Ministers. 

As early as January 17th, Sir Claude MacDon- 
ald reports to Lord Salisbury that Bishop Scott 
(after the murder of Mr. Brooks) telegraphed to 
Mr. Brown to inquire as to the state of affairs, 
and received on the 9th inst. a reply as fol- 
lows: 

" Outlook very black ; daily marauding ; con- 
stant danger. Edict suppressing (Boxers) pub- 
lished. Troops present, but useless; officials 
complete inaction. Prefect blocks ; secret orders 
from Throne to encourage (Boxers)." On this 
Sir Claude remarks: "On the nth inst. I saw 
the Ministers of the Tsung Li Yamen and spoke 
to them in terms of the gravest warning. While 
I could not believe it possible, I said, that the rumors 
of secret orders from the Throne were true. The 
mere fact of the currency of such rumors showed 
the impression which the conduct of the prefect 
conveyed to the public." 

Under date of May 21st H. B. M.'s Minister 



i68 The Siege in Peking 

encloses a letter of Bishop Favier, addressing M. 
Pichon, as follows : 

" I beg you will be assured, Monsieur le Minis- 
tre, that I am well informed, and am making no 
statements at random. The religious persecu- 
tion is only a blind. The main object is to exter- 
minate the Europeans, and this object is clearly in- 
dicated and written on the Boxers' standards." 

Commenting on this, Sir Claude says, " it was 
generally felt (in the diplomatic body) that after 
making all due allowances for the color which 
might have been lent to his words by the fears 
of his converts, his deliberately expressed opinion 
on the situation could not be treated with indif- 
ference. At the same time we did not consider 
that the circumstances, so far as we were in a 
position to judge, were such as to justify the brings 
ing up of Legation Guards." 

Just a week later Sir Claude sends another 
despatch which is notable as containing the last 
public utterance of Baron Ketteler. By this 
time all the Ministers had been waked out of 
their diplomatic dream by the outrages on the 
Paoting-fu railway. 

" During the discussion (in conference) the 
German Minister declared that it was utterly use- 
less either to expect the Chinese Government to 



Reconstruction 169 

do anything effective, or to take any action our- 
selves, such as bringing up guards, based on the 
belief that that Government could remain stable 
or on the desire to assist in propping up its crum- 
bling structure." 

That " crumbling structure " has now come to 
the ground, burying in its ruins the fairest prod- 
ucts of foreign enterprise. The Powers have un- 
dertaken to set it up again — an undertaking not 
unlike that of Rome had she resolved to rebuild 
the city of Pompeii. They may clear away some 
of the debris, but they can hardly hope for per- 
manence. Nor is the permanence of the structure 
to be desired unless it give impartial shelter to 
Christian and to pagan. 

The outlook for China is not cheering — even 
if the Powers join in the maintenance of her ter- 
ritorial integrity — yet is it far from hopeless. 

The views of Sir Robert Hart, as given in the 
Fortnightly, are a little too pessimistic. He 
thinks (and his opinions are not to be lightly dis- 
regarded) that the Boxer craze will continue to 
spread ; that within two or three years there will 
be in China twenty million Boxers; and that 
there is but one cure for it, viz. : the rapid spread 
of Christianity — but of that he sees no hope. 

In two points out of three my views are in ac- 



lyo The Siege in Peking 

cord with his, but I do not share his gloomy an- 
ticipations. 

The defeat of the power that called the Boxers 
out of their obscure retreat is almost certain to 
be followed by a collapse of the Boxers — es- 
pecially as the Chinese public holds them respon- 
sible for the calamities the Empress Dowager has 
brought on the empire. She herself makes them 
her scapegoat; nor does she appear inclined to 
let them go unscathed, as the Hebrews did with 
their vicarious victim. Even now their tide is 
on the ebb, and in a few months it may be that 
nothing will remain of the disastrous flood but 
here and there a brackish pool. That Christian- 
ity is the most radical, if not the sole, remedy for 
this curse of pagan fanaticism, I firmly believe. 
That its spread cannot, in the nature of the case, 
be as rapid as that of the Boxers, I also admit. 
Yet do the fires kindled by the Boxers throw 
light on the success of missions, and prove that 
Christianity was making no little headway. 



APPENDIX 

Note. — The three poems which follow are in them- 
selves full of interest. Translated by the author, and 
now published for the first time in this country, they 
throw much light on Chinese life. One expressing con- 
jugal tenderness, another showing that China has her 
heroines, and a third proving that the Chinese are not 
devoid of chivalrous sentiment. People capable of this 
strain of feeling are not beyond the pale of our sym- 
pathy. 

Of the three prose documents it is enough to say that 
they are cited in the text as of great value. 

SU WU TO HIS WIFE. 

On Setting Out on His Embassy to the Court of the 
Grand Khan of Tartary, loo B.C.* 

Twin trees whose boughs together twine, 

Two birds that guard one nest. 
We'll soon be far asunder torn. 

As sunrise from the west. 

Hearts knit in childhood's innocence, 

Long bound in Hymen's ties; 
One goes to distant battle-fields, 

One sits at home and sighs. 

• On arriving he was thrown into prison, lowered into a well, and treated 
with great indignity. We are not told that his hfe was threatened, yet his 
master made war on the Khau to rescue or avenge him. The Khan in 
great alarm released him and came to terms. With such precedents in 
their history how could the Dowager and her clique be so blind as to follow 
the example of the Grand Khan 2 

171 



iy2 The Siege in Peking 

Like carrier bird, though seas divide, 

I'll seek my lonely mate; 
But if afar I find a grave, 

You'll mourn my hapless fate. 

To us the future's all unknown, 

In memory seek relief; 
Come, touch the chords you know so well, 

And let them soothe our grief. 



MULAN, A CHINESE JOAN OF ARC. 

A Chinese Ballad of the Liang Dynasty, 502-556 a.d. 

An ofKcer being disabled, his daughter puts on his 
armor, and, so disguised, leads his troops to the conflict. 
The original is anonymous and of uncertain date. 

Say, maiden, at your spinning-wheel, 
Why heave that deep-drawn sigh? 

Is 't fear perchance or love you feel. 
Pray tell — oh, tell me why? 

Nor fear nor love has moved mx soul — • 

Away such idle thought! 
A warrior's glory is the goal 

By my ambition sought. 

My father's cherished life to save, 

My country to redeem. 
The dangers of the field I'll brave — • 

I am not what I seem. 

No son has he his troop to lead. 

No brother dear have I ; 
So I must mount my father's steed. 

And to the battle hie. 



Appendix 173 



At dawn of day she quits her door, 

At evening rests her head 
Where loud the mountain torrents roar 

And mail-clad soldiers tread. 

The northern plains are gained at last, 
The mountains sink from view, 

The sun shines cold, and the wintry blast 
It pierces through and through. 

A thousand foes around her fall. 
And red blood stains the ground; 

But Mulan, who survives it all, 
Returns with glory crowned. 

Before the throne they bend the knee, 

In the palace of Chang-an, 
Full many a knight of high degree. 

But the bravest is Mulan. 

Nay, Prince, she cries, my duty's donCj 

No guerdon I desire, 
But let me to my home begone. 

To cheer my aged sire. 

She nears the door of her father's home, 

A chief with trumpet's blare, 
But when she doffs her waving plume, 

She stands a maiden fair. 



THE MIDNIGHT OFFERING. 

/i Tale of the Tartar Wars, Related by a Manchu of 
the Imperial Clan. 

On the last night of the year the Emperor offers a 
sacrifice in one of his family temples on the east of the 
canal, not far from the British Legation, and it is gen- 
erally believed that this sacrifice is offered, in whole or 



174 The Siege in Peking 

in part, to the manes of a Chinese general, who, nearly 
three centuries ago, opposed the advance of the Tartars. 

You ask me to tell why, in yonder halls. 

The Lord of the Rivers and Hills 
There at midnight low on the pavement falls. 

And an annual rite fulfils. 

'Twas after the rise of our Manchu clan. 
When our sires were roaming the plains, 

This rite was ordained for a worthy man, 
Whose honor unfading remains. 

One morning our Founder, the brave Tai-tsu, 

Was beat in a terrible fight; 
His arrows were spent, his spear broke in two,. 

And safety lay only in flight. 

The cloud of pursuers waxed thin and few. 

As through the thick jungle he sped; 
One warrior at last left alone to pursue. 

And fleeter the fugitive fled. 

All way-worn and weary, but not in despair. 

He sought in the jungle to hide; 
Only hoping at best for a wild beast's lair. 

When a vine-covered cavern he spied. 

My lady! he cried to an aged crone. 
Whom at the cave's entrance he found. 

Pray let me repose in your fortress of stone, 
And spread me a mat on the ground. 

Refreshment and shelter I will not withhold; 

You've nothing to fear, said the dame. 
For I have a son, who's a soldier bold; 

In his need I should wish him the same. 



Appendix 175 



Just then the pursuer burst into the cave, 

The flash of his falchion was seen; 
But, thoughtful the life of her stranger to save, 

The matron quick rushed in between. 

Spare the life of my guest, and touch not a hair; 

I received him for your sake alone! — 
For your sake, my mother, the stranger I spare. 

But you've bartered the life of your son. 

For you have I broken my chieftain's command. 

My blood must atone for my guilt; 
So saying, the blade that he held in his hand 

He plunged in his heart to the hilt. 

Farewell, Noble Soul ! the brave Tai-tsu exclaimed. 

My brother ! your mother is mine. 
In ages to come, you'll with honor be named 

And adored in our family shrine. 



FUTURE MISSIONARY POLICY IN CHINA. 
A Notable Conference of Missionary Secretaries. 

BY rev. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.D., NEW YORK CITY, 
Sbcrktary of the Presbyterian Board for Foreign Missions. 

Now that immediate danger of the further destruction 
of missionary life in China has probably passed, stu- 
pendous problems of reconstruction confront us. Never 
before in all the history of missions have such difificult 
and delicate questions called for an answer. The work 
of the largest mission field in the world is paralyzed, 
many stations have been abandoned, and the missionaries 
are fugitives in the port cities, and in Korea and Japan, 
while at home the expediency of the whole missionary 
enterprise is being challenged, the boards are urged to 



176 The Siege in Peking 

send no more missionaries to China, and some people 
frankly say that in any event they will give no more 
money for missionary work in China. 

In these circumstances every board has a heavy re- 
sponsibility. In order that we in the Presbyterian 
Board might have sound counsel, we first sought the 
opinions of the missionaries themselves. So we cabled 
to those assembled in Chefoo, asking them to hold a 
meeting, consider the policy that ought to be adopted, 
and wire us their judgment. Providentially, there were 
about forty Presbyterian missionaries from China in 
this country on furlough. We selected eight wise, de- 
voted men, representing all our missions in China, 
brought them to New York at the expense of the board, 
and spent many profitable hours with them, listening to 
all that was in their hearts, after the months of thought 
and prayer which they had naturally given to the sub- 
ject. Nor was this all, for we wrote to all the other 
missionaries from China now in the United States, ex- 
plaining that while it was impracticable for financial 
reasons to bring so many to New York, yet we desired 
their opinions too, and requesting each one to freely 
write any suggestions. Thus we did everything in our 
power to ascertain the views of the devoted missionaries 
themselves. 

Realizing, however, that the questions before us were 
common to other boards similarly situated, all the boards 
of foreign missions in the United States and Canada, 
having work in China, were invited to send delegates to 
an interdenominational conference in New York. The 
invitation was cordially accepted, and September 21 
thirty-two delegates assembled in our board rooms, rep- 
resenting nearly all the leading Protestant bodies of 
America. In this conference also the entire ground was 
traversed, step by step, including a docket embracing 
thirty topics and sub-topics. The conference was of 
extraordinary interest and value. While the discussions 



Appendix 177 

were free and the opinions not always unanimous, yet 
harmony prevailed to a remarkable degree. The session 
began with a season of special prayer for Divine guid- 
ance, and never was prayer more plainly answered. We 
separated, feeling that we had been greatly helped, that 
our vision had been clarified, and that we were prepared 
to submit clearer judgment to our respective boards. 

The main lines of policy agreed upon by both mis- 
sionaries and board representatives (for with one minor 
exception practically identical views were expressed in 
the two conferences), and which will now be voted upon 
by the boards concerned were as follows : 



RESUMPTION OF THE WORK. 

I. While the uprising in China has, of course, had a 
restrictive, and in some places a deeply injurious present 
effect on missionary operations, there is no adequate 
ground for discouragement, and the work ought to be, 
and must be resumed at as early a date as may be prac- 
ticable and wise. There is no disposition to be reckless 
in reopening stations. We do not underestimate the 
possible consequences of premature resumption of work. 
The servants of the Lord must be sensible. But not for 
a moment are we discouraged. Clear, strong, and unan- 
imous was the note of both conferences that God will 
overrule this disturbance for the furtherance of the Gos- 
pel, that just as the most successful era of missionary 
work in India followed the mutiny of 1857, so will a 
new day for China date from the Boxer riots of 1900; 
that not only should every destroyed station be rebuilt, 
but that plans should be made for re-enforcements and 
increased expenditures, in order that the Church of God 
may seize the coming strategic opportunity to win China 
for Christ. The missionaries in particular were united 
and -enthusiastic in the conviction that a large number 
of new missionaries will be needed next year, and that 



lyS The Siege in Peking 

the young men in the theological seminaries should be 
^»i^^„j-aged to apply for appointment. 



encou 



AN AGGRESSIVE POLICY AT HOME. 



2. In view of the public interest in China, the frequent 
denial of the validity of the whole missionary enterprise, 
and the fact that the missionary cause now has the at- 
tention of the country as never before, it was unanimous- 
ly agreed that we should adopt an aggressive policy at 
home. A committee was therefore appointed to prepare 
a joint letter to the American churches, reaffirming the 
Divine authority of missions as of supreme and perpet- 
ual obligation, emphasizing the true significance of the 
present situation in China, and summoning the churches 
to special gifts for the re-establishment and enlargement 
of the work, and to the observance of the week begin- 
ning October 28th, as a week of special prayer, with me- 
morial services for martyred missionaries. It was also 
voted that the letter should include reference to the 
noble fidelity of the Chinese Christians under the awful 
persecution to which they have been subjected, com- 
mend them to the sympathies and prayers of God's peo- 
ple everywhere, and heartily indorse the appeal of Min- 
ister Conger and representative missionaries in Peking, 
for relief contributions, the conference holding that 
these Christians were worthy of a generosity similar to 
that which has been extended to the famine sufferers in 
India. We hope that this letter will be read from every 
pulpit in the United States and Canada, and made the 
subject of Sabbath sermons, mid-week devotional meet- 
ings, family prayers, and such other services as may be 
deemed advisable by the pastors concerned. 

THE MISSIONARIES NOW IN CHINA. 

3. Sympathetic consideration was given to the em- 
barrassment of the missionaries who are crowded in the 
port cities, with only the scanty clothing they happened 



Appendix 179 

to be wearing when they fled from their stations, and 
forced to pay high prices for rent and supplies. Is the 
interruption of work likely to be so long continued that 
they should come home? Both furloughed missionaries 
and board representatives felt that a general recall to 
America was neither necessary nor expedient. Such a 
return would involve an enormous expense, for our 
Presbyterian Board alone has over 150 China mission- 
aries still abroad. It would destroy the continuity of 
the work, leave the Chinese Christians to unrelieved suf- 
fering and disaster, and the remaining mission property 
to be still further damaged. It would make it impossi- 
ble to resume the work if, in the providence of God, 
such resumption should be practicable within a few 
months. The home church would be unfavorably af- 
fected by such a general withdrawal, naturally constru- 
ing it as an admission of defeat, and indefinite post- 
ponement of missionary work, and in consequence 
diminishing gifts, while as the usual term of service in 
China is about eight years, so many furloughs now 
would mean that eight or nine years hence most of the 
missionaries in China would need a furlough, and so 
another general exodus would be necessary, thus prac- 
tically subjecting the work for an indefinite period to 
alternations of vigorous effort, and more or less com- 
plete inaction. All agreed therefore that, except where 
conditions of ill health or nervous strain render an im- 
mediate return necessary, the missionaries now on the 
field should await developments in Korea, Japan, and 
such China ports as may be safe, in anticipation of an 
early resumption of the work, the care and reconstruc- 
tion of the mission property, and particularly the guid- 
ance and comfort of the Chinese Christians, who other- 
wise would be left to the wolves as sheep having no 
shepherd. The suggestion was made that missionaries 
who may not be able to return to their own stations 
might temporarily assist other stations or missions. 



i8o The Siege in Peking 

In like manner, there was general agreement that 
while each board must determine for itself when mis- 
sionaries on furlough and new missionaries under ap- 
pointment should leave for their respective fields, such 
missionaries should not anticipate an indefinite delay in 
this country, but should hold themselves in readiness to 
sail at such dates as might prove practicable in consul- 
tation with their respective boards. Some of these 
rested, vigorous men may be needed at once to relieve 
their North China brethren who have been exhausted 
by the awful experiences of recent months. 



THE QUESTION OF INDEMNITY, 

4. Much time was given to the question of indemnity. 
Eight boards reported definite knowledge of destroyed 
or damaged property, in some instances to a very large 
amount, while most of the other boards anticipated 
losses. Not all saw alike on this question. There was, 
however, unanimity in the conviction that it would be 
highly unbecoming in the followers of Christ to manifest 
a mercenary spirit and make exorbitant demands upon 
the Chinese, especially as corrupt officials would prob- 
ably squeeze the required sums out of the innocent vil- 
lagers, and count themselves lucky in getting off so easy. 
After full discussion, vote was taken upon the motion 
that: (a) When the governments shall ask for infor- 
mation as to claims for indemnity, such claims should 
not include suffering, loss of life, or interruption of 
work, but only the actual value of destroyed or injured 
property, and the extraordinary expenses incurred in 
consequence of the troubles, and (b) in exceptional 
cases, for loss of life which has destroyed the means of 
support for wife and children. 

The question being divided, (a) was carried unani- 
mously, though one delegate did not vote. On (b) a 
majority held that in such cases a claim might reason- 



Appendix 181 

ably be made on behalf of an otherwise destitute family, 
though a minority felt that not even then should a money 
value be placed on missionary life, and that the care of 
dependent relatives was a proper charge on the home 
church. It was unanimously voted that claims for in- 
demnity should not be presented by individual mission- 
aries directly to the civil authorities, but only through 
their respective boards, and that it was inexpedient to 
appoint an interdenominational committee to collate and 
present these claims, but that each board should act for 
itself. 

The thought here was not to interfere with the liberty 
of- any missionary, but rather to relieve him and also 
the government. Several hundred missionaries are in- 
volved. They are widely scattered. While a few are 
so situated that they might effectively push their own 
claims, a large majority would be under great disadvan- 
tage in conducting the necessary negotiations. Nor 
must we forget the embarrassment to which our gov- 
ernment might be exposed. The State Department has 
been exceedingly kind, and no member of the adminis- 
tration has ever even hinted at the annoyance of which 
Lord Salisbury complained in England. Nevertheless, 
we can readily see what delicacies would be involved if 
so many individuals were to be pushing indemnity claims 
with varying degrees of vigor and with widely different 
ideas as to what objects should be included. More- 
over, experience with Oriental governments hardly jus- 
tifies the belief that the indemnity will be paid within 
ten days ! While the negotiations are pending, how are 
the missionaries to be carried? They must have im- 
mediate reimbursement for the extraordinary expense 
which they have incurred. Manifestly the boards must 
stand behind the missionaries, promptly meeting their 
necessary and pressing obligations, and then deal with 
the government regarding the indemnity. The boards 
are better able to bear the burden of delay than the in- 



i82 The Siege in Peking 

dividual missionaries. In the Presbyterian Board we 
shall follow the analogy of our annual estimates, ask 
each individual and station to make out a schedule, have 
it voted on by the mission, and then forwarded to the 
board in New York. In this way the vexed question of 
indemnity can be handled in an orderly and prudent 
manner. We shall avoid demands which might subject 
the whole missionary enterprise to criticism, and we 
shall not embitter the Chinese by taking what might be 
deemed unfair advantage of them. 

MISSIONARIES AND THE CIVIL POWERS. 

5. The conference was not disposed to allow critics to 
define the relation of the missionary to the civil power, 
especially as those critics do not ordinarily distinguish 
between the radically different practises of Roman Cath- 
olics and Protestants. It was felt that this would be a 
good time for the Protestant missionary bodies to put 
themselves on record. As such a paper could not wisely 
be framed amid the hurry of a conference, a committee 
was appointed to draft it, and to report at the annual 
joint conference next January. Meantime, the Presby- 
terian missionaries unanimously declared it to be their 
rule not to apply to the civil authorities unless absolutely 
necessary, and that they had repeatedly refused to make 
such appeals when they might reasonably have done so. 
The Rev. Dr. A. A. Fulton, of Canton, stated that he had 
not appealed to the civil authorities half a dozen times 
in twenty years. The Rev. A. M. Cunningham, of 
Peking, had appealed only twice in eight and a half 
years, and then simply to transmit information ; the Rev. 
P. W. McClintock, of Hainan, only once in eight years ; 
the Rev. Dr. J. N. Hayes, of Suchou, once in eighteen 
years; the Rev. J. H. Laughlin, of Shantung, never in 
nineteen years. And the missionaries stated that they 
believed themselves to be fairly representative of the 
practice of American Protestant missionaries in China. 



Appendix 183 

A significant indication of the attitude of the boards 
was given in the vote on a request that had been cabled 
from China to several boards, asking them to protest to 
Washington against the proposed evacuation of Peking 
by the allied armies and the reinstatement of the Em- 
press-dowager, as disastrous to missions. Some of the 
missionaries thought that such a protest should be made 
on the ground that the withdrawal of the armies and the 
reinstatement of the Empress would be construed by the 
Chinese as a victory for them, destroy the moral effect 
of the occupation of Peking, and perhaps lead to the re- 
newal of trouble. The interdenominational conference, 
however, unanimously voted to take no action. Some of 
its members had decided convictions as to what the gov- 
ernments ought to do; but they held that it was not 
proper for missionary workers, as such, to proffer un- 
asked advice to the government in a matter so distinctly 
within its sphere, nor were they willing to go on record 
as saying that an armed force is necessary to missionary 
interests anywhere. While several of the missionaries 
felt that the instigators and leaders of the uprising 
should be punished in the interest of future security, the 
majority declared that this question also belonged to the 
government, which was understood to have it under 
consideration, and that any demand on the part of mis- 
sionaries or boards was to be seriously deprecated. The 
power of the sword has not been committed to us, and 
the civil magistrate to whom it has been committed 
should, in our judgment, exercise that power on his own 
initiative and responsibility. 



THE QUESTION OF COMITY. 

On May 15, the Presbyterian Board adopted a decla- 
ration of principles of comity, and expressed to its sister 
boards its cordial willingness to co-operate in any practi- 
cal measures to carry them into effect. The suggestion 



184 The Siege in Peking ; 

was made that a providential opportunity had now oc- 
curred. Manifestly the conference could not take final 
action on such a question, but it unanimously adopted 
the following resolution : 

It is the judgment of this conference that the resump- 
tion of mission work in those parts of China where it 
has been interrupted would afford a favorable opportu- 
nity for putting into practise some of the principles of 
mission comity which have been approved by a general 
consensus of opinion among missionaries and boards, 
especially in regard to the overlapping of fields and such 
work as printing and publishing, higher education and 
hospital work, and the conference would commend the 
subject to the favorable consideration and action of the 
various boards and their missionaries. 

Each board will immediately inaugurate a vigorous 
foreign missionary campaign among the home churches. 
In the Presbyterian Board, we are urging the mission- 
aries from China now in this country to avail them- 
selves of the public interest by freely contributing arti- 
cles to the religious and secular papers, and to give all 
practicable time to the home department secretary for 
addresses. We are calling upon the churches not only to 
maintain their usual gifts, but to provide a large fund 
with which we can meet the extraordinary expenses in- 
curred during recent months, and in due time rebuild 
the ruined stations and enlarge the work. We propose 
to divide this estimated special expenditure into shares 
of one hundred dollars each, and endeavor to place them 
with churches, societies, and individuals, such shares to 
be in excess of ordinary contributions and of the fifteen 
per cent, increase required for the maintenance of the 
regular work. 

It will thus be seen that the steady tone of both con- 
ferences was distinctively hopeful. All felt that the 
American churches are now being brought into new re- 



Appendix 185 

lations with the unevangelized races. They must no 
longer regard foreign missions as simply one of many 
causes calling for collections, but be led to recognize the 
world-wide preaching of the Gospel as the great work 
for which the Church is set. May we not confidently 
rely upon the prayers of all the friends of missions as 
we now summon the churches to go forward in the name 
of the Lord of Hosts ? 



THE MARTYRED MISSIONARIES. 

Very tender was that part of the conference in which 
report was made of martyrdoms. Only two boards 
represented were thus bereaved, but they have lost heav- 
ily. The American Board announced the massacre of 
one man and two women at Pao-ting-fu and the entire 
Shansi force — five men, five women, and five children. 
The Presbyterian board mourns the death of three men, 
two women, and three children at Pao-ting-fu — a total 
for both boards of eighteen missionaries and eight little 
ones. Considering the large number of American mis- 
sionaries in China, and the magnitude and violence oi 
the outbreak, this is a comparatively small numerical 
loss. But when we add the European missionaries who 
also ascended in that tumult of fire, the list lengthens 
to appalling proportions. None who knew them can 
scan that roll of martyrs without feeling that the soil of 
China has been forever consecrated by the blood of God's 
saints — " of whom the world was not worthy." May 
God show the shining of His face through the cloud of 
sorrow, and may He grant to those who remain a new 
spirit of love and power for the Master who Himself 
tasted the bitterness of death for us all ! 



i86 The Siege in Peking 

SIR ROBERT HART. 

Some College Memories. 

The Belfast Northern Whig of the 21st of July has 
the following interesting letter from the president of 
Queen's College, Belfast: 

To the Editor of the Northern Whig. ' 

Sir — With a heavy heart I sit down to ask your per- 
mission to weave if only a little chaplet for the bier of 
my friend, Sir Robert Hart, whose terrible death you 
chronicle for us to-day. 

Were this college in session, and not, as it is, in the 
midst of the long vacation, I have no doubt an official 
pronouncement would be made testifying to the unut- 
terable regret which I know is felt throughout our entire 
body at the awful news. As it is, I can only speak fee- 
bly for myself what would otherwise be said much more 
effectively, and with all the weight of authority, by the 
College Council. The death is, I need not say, an ir- 
reparable loss to our empire and to the cause of civiliza- 
tion and progress all over the world. But to Queen's 
College, Belfast, it is a personal bereavement. Sir Rob- 
ert Hart was one of our earliest alumni, and we were 
all proud of him with a pardonable pride. It is sad to 
turn now to our " Calendar," as I have done this morn- 
ing, and read of his career, when, in the early flush of 
ambition, he trod our cloisters with Reichel, and Mac- 
Douall and Craik, and Andrews and M'Cosh, and the 
other professors of that day, and contended for our 
scholarships and prizes with fellow-students, too many 
of whom are also, alas ! no more. It was in 1850 that 
he entered college. His form of application for admis- 
sion, filled up in his own youthful handwriting, is pre- 
served among the archives in the Registrar's office, and 
is now a precious relic. In his first year he won a junior 



Appendix 187 

literary scholarship in iHe Faculty of Arts. Next year 
he gained another, one of his competitors, who ran him 
very close, and in the end took a higher place, being 
James Cuming, who was in later years to become our 
widely known professor of medicine. In 1852 he took 
a third-year scholarship, this time topping the list, and 
next year he crowned his career among us by gaining 
the highest honor then in our gift — a senior scholarship 
— his subjects for which were modern languages and 
modern history. He then graduated, not, as has been 
stated, in the University of Dublin, but, of course, in 
the old Queen's University, and took first honors in 
two groups of subjects — English and logic and meta- 
physics. Not long after, on the advice, I believe, of Dr. 
Andrews and Dr. M'Cosh, he entered on that career 
from which China was to reap such splendid fruit, and 
which has now ended so tragicallJ^ Ever since his 
course has been watched with — may I not say? — a 
unique and admiring interest, and ever since also he has 
proved himself the fast friend of his old college. To 
student after student he opened careers in China. Mr. 
S. M. Russell, who, it is to be feared, has now shared 
his fate, and Mr. C. H. Oliver were appointed through 
him professors in the Imperial College, Peking, and 
other men were given posts in the Imperial Maritime 
Customs which Sir Robert may be said to have created. 
To-day there are specially recalled to my memory two 
little incidents in the recent history of our college — little 
but significant — in which his love for his Alma Mater 
shone out conspicuously. Eight years ago I wrote him 
of the proposal to establish a Students' Union here, and 
by next post came, not only his cheque for £200, but 
a letter, warmly approving of the project and breath- 
ing the most ardent affection for the scene of his early 
studies and academic struggles. The other incident oc- 
curred when, a few years later, we celebrated the jubilee 
of the college. He then sent me another letter, the read- 



l88 The Siege in Peking 

ing of which at the memorable meeting in our library, in 
the presence of the Lord Lieutenant and the many other 
notable personages who honored us with their presence 
that day, was not the least interesting feature of a re- 
markable occasion. In it he regretted keenly that he 
could not be with us to share our joy and join in our 
congratulations, and recalled many interesting details of 
his student days. It is unutterably saddening to think 
that that busy brain and that warm heart are now for 
ever still. In the terribly long list of deaths which this 
year has brought — deaths which have tolled and are still 
tolling their mufHed knells in our hearts — his stands out 
in melancholy prominence. But the great work which 
he has done remains behind, and it will be long indeed 
before the illustrious name, the splendid services to 
humanity, and the unsullied reputation of Robert Hart 
pass into oblivion. 

Thomas Hamilton. 

Queen's College, Belfast, July i6, 1900. 



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